It's been days since the crew's meeting with the ice admiral had passed, and they've been more than glad to put the event behind them by getting back on the Grand Line.
Ever since they left the island, the pirates have only been experiencing some much needed peace. Today shows no signs of it being different, with the sun rising above the calm waters for a new morning.
Just as the sunlight peeks in the window of the girls' room, the rays hit Rose's sleeping face on her place on the futon, and starts to wake her up.
The wind girl groggily opens her eyes, and starts to get up, but is quickly pulled down by a strong force!
Thanks to the rough pull back to the mattress, she fully wakes up to see her new lover sleeping by her side!
She heavily blushes from the sight of his cute snoring face, because he wasn't there when she went to sleep. When she tries to pull away, only to get pulled back, she groans at her situation when she looks down to see that his rubber arms have coiled around her waist multiple times. "Fuck, when did he get here?!"
With everyone else asleep, she just focuses on escaping by turning her body into air and re-materializing on her feet at the foot of her mattress.
Once she's free, she looks down at Luffy, grins at the cute sight, and grabs her camera to take a picture of him.
As soon as she accomplishes her goal, she chuckles in satisfaction as she takes her bag, and runs out to avoid the risk of him grabbing her in his sleep again.
She hurriedly rushes to the kitchen and finds Sanji already making breakfast.
As soon as he hears the noise, he looks over his shoulder to find the wind girl putting her bag on a chair, and putting the camera away. When he sees her patting down her bedhead, he tiredly sighs. "Luffy snuck into your room again, didn't he?"
Rose chuckles at how obvious it is, as she finishes patting down her brown hair. "Yea, any idea when he does it?"
"If I did, I would kick his ass before he left the room. He doesn't hurt you, does he?"
"No, he just cuddles with me so I don't mind. I just have to get out quick before he can pull me back to the bed." She answers while she goes up to the counter, where he's working, to see him cutting some fruit for the pancakes he made.
She sees all eight plates of short stacks already placed on the counter, and goes to grab the only one that has fruit on it. "If this dish is done, I can-!"
She stops herself when Sanji suddenly swoops his hand down to grab the plate with pure grace, and enough speed to swipe it before she can even touch it!
Rose is dumbfounded by the grab, but takes the hint by holding her hands up to show that she's surrendering. "Sorry..."
Sanji quietly sighs in guilt before he puts down the plate, while making sure the tangerine slices didn't move an inch from their spot. "No, I'm sorry. I appreciate the gesture, but this plate is too important. I want to deliver it myself."
Rose looks at the plate with curiosity and sees that tangerine slices are surrounding the short stack, and are scattered to create a heart shape around the stack. To top it off, there are even tiny hearts scattered around the top of the flapjacks in orange syrup.
Rose doesn't see any of the other dishes like that, but she can easily tell who it belongs to, given that tangerines are the navigator's favorite fruit. It also helps that Sanji has been doing this kind of thing with Nami's dishes, ever since she and Luffy became a couple, but doesn't do anything special to her and Robin's plates anymore.
The brunette can't help but smile at the effort Sanji is putting to winning Nami's affections, and does something else to help by opening the silverware drawer. "Don't worry about it Sanji, I understand. Nami'll really like it."
Sanji lightly blushes at the comment, and looks to her with wide eyes. "Is it that obvious?!"
Rose shyly nods before she grabs two fistfuls of utensils. "A little, only because you put all your decorating efforts with Nami's dishes now, which I'm glad for."
"You are?"
"Yea, this is the first time I've seen you serious about just one girl. It's really sweet."
Sanji is pretty happy about the praise, but he doesn't hear too many comments about it from the woman of his dreams. He even focuses on just complimenting Nami now, instead of the other girls, but with no real feedback besides the usual thanks, he fears that his past flirtations have spoiled his chances…
With that type of doubt clouding his mind, he doesn't know where to go from here, so he looks to his friend for help. "Has Nami-san ever said anything about my efforts?"
Rose hums in thought as she neatly places a fork and knife in front of each chair. "She's been surprised with you just doting on her now. She's still wrapping her head around it, but she's been a lot happier since you've done this, so I think you're on the right track."
Sanji brightens up at the comments and is grateful to know that he's making some progress.
Rose can see his excitement too, and softly grins at the lovestruck chef when she places the leftover utensils back in the drawer. "I can see you've been happier too. If you need any help with getting Nami's heart, I've got your back."
"Thank you Rose-chan." Sanji mutters when he gives small slices of strawberries on the other plates just when the others start filing in.
Once the wind girl gets in her seat, Luffy immediately takes the seat next to hers.
As soon as Rose looks to Luffy, she drops her jaw at the sight of the large lump on the top of his head. "What the hell happened?"
"Nami smacked me in the head for no reason..." Luffy answers in a pout as he rubs his head.
Nami twitches an eyebrow at the lame explanation and glares at him. "I smacked you because you were sleeping in our room again. We already told you, you can't do that."
"But I want to sleep with Rose, but she won't go to the guys' room." Luffy answers with his lover starting to get embarrassed from the answer.
"I already told you, we don't need to sleep together every night."
"But I like cuddling with you." Luffy retorts with his puppy dog eyes weakening the brunette's resolve to the point where she has to cover her face to hide from the adorableness.
Zoro snorts at the conversation before he butts in. "You know Luffy, there's a way to fix this."
He gains everyone's attention from that comment, and gives them his thoughts with a teasing smile. "When the ship gets repaired, have them make a separate room for you two. That way you both can be together every night."
Luffy beams at the suggestion and pumps his fists. "Yea!"
Rose feels like her hand will be permanently attached to her red face from Zoro intensifying this, and wants nothing more than to punch the moss head in the face right now. "Can we not talk about this now?"
Luffy frowns at the question because he thought this is the easiest thing for them. "But why-?!"
He cuts himself off when Sanji saves the day by roughly dropping a plate of pancakes in front of his captain.
"Don't go pushing something she's not ready for." Sanji says before he takes another plate off his waiter's tray to place a plate of pancakes in front of the wind girl. "Here you go."
"Thank you…" Rose mutters in appreciation as she keeps her hands on her face until she has to stab Luffy's hand with a fork to keep him away from her food.
As the others laugh at the food picking battle between the two lovers, Sanji casually drops a plate in front of each crew member.
When he reaches Nami's spot, he gives the navigator a sweet grin as he gently places her special dish in front of her. "Here you go mademoiselle."
Nami widens her brown eyes at the delicious looking pancakes, and see that her dish is the only one decorated with hearts. She happily grins at the sweet gesture, and looks up at the chef. "Thank you Sanji-kun, this looks great."
Sanji brightens up at the beautiful smile, and can't help but swoon. "My pleasure Nami-san!"
He twirls back to his seat as soon as he's done, and joins the others with enjoying their meal.
As soon as the meal is finished, everyone scatters off to use the warm day to the fullest, while Sanji works on cleaning up his work space.
Nami and Robin are more than content with laying out in the sun, with Sanji providing them drinks, and ignoring Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper's game of tag all around the front deck.
As soon as Rose reaches the back deck to do some training, she sees Zoro lifting some weights. She definitely wants to get back at him for getting the idea of separate rooms in Luffy's head, but a simple punch isn't enough.
Ever since she received the ok from Chopper to be allowed to train again, she's been working on mastering a new move. With what can be the after effect of this move, it could work out perfectly for her revenge, so she rushes off to the back of the ship with a mischievous smirk.
As soon as she's standing on the railing, she stretches both of her arms out to the ocean. As soon as she's ready, she shows her hard work by turning both her arms into tornadoes, that are rotating in opposite directions, and stretches their reach thirty feet over the ocean!
As she works to make them as fast as possible, she sees that her work is finally paying off because the two tornadoes are getting fast enough to pick up the water from the ocean. As she manipulates the two typhoons, she curves them up, fifteen feet from the ship, so the water covered twisters can rise up fifteen feet into the sky!
Everyone on the deck, see a shadow fall over them, and drop their jaws when they see the two typhoons!
Rose blocks out the screams, and keeps her eyes on having her creations fly above the water, and out of the ocean. As soon as they're high in the air, she clashes the two storms together, and releases her wind to let them cancel each other out, and for the stolen water pours down on everyone like a storm.
Rose giggles at the rain, before she holds her arms out, and spins to celebrate the new move's success with no regards of getting wet. When she starts seeing everyone storming the back deck, just as the rain stops, she quits her spinning to see most of them are looking at her with a mix of shock and annoyance.
She can tell that she overdid it because every last one of them is soaked, so she awkwardly chuckles while she waves at them. "Hey guys, crazy weather huh?"
"You're the one who did it!" Nami, Zoro, and Usopp yell out in annoyance.
Luffy however, gives her a big smile as he runs up to her. "That was so cool! Do it again!"
"Not again!" Usopp says before he looks to the logia user. "What the hell were you thinking?! You could've hit Merry!"
Rose frowns at the possibility before she rubs the back of her neck. "Sorry, I needed the practice. I tested it out with smaller versions before I tried it this big though."
She chuckles at the memory of using smaller twisters on her fingers, and making them bigger every hour of her training sessions until she reached this result. "At the very least it was a success. If I only make one, this could help us when we're being chased by warships."
Nami won't admit that she's glad that they have that ace up their sleeve now, but instead she shows motions her hands to her wet clothes. "Can you at least warn us when you're doing that next time? We're soaked!"
"Right, I can fix that…" Rose lifts her hands with her palms facing her friends, and creates a big gust, not strong enough to send them flying, but enough to blast the water off of them.
She stops after a minute, and covers her mouth, when she sees everyone's hair, blown up into a bush to look like they all have afros, to keep herself from laughing. "A-all done! Usopp, come with me!"
She turns her whole body into air and flies Usopp into a cloud, with him screaming from the kidnapping, while the others become either surprised or horrified by the new hairstyles.
Luffy, and Chopper are laughing their butts off about the afros until Nami whacks them all on the head to shut them up!
Nami looks around for the girl responsible, but she's nowhere to be found, so she stomps inside in a huff to fix her hair, while Robin follows her with a fit of giggles.
"If you three are done, get out too." Zoro says to the two idiots, as he runs a hand through his mossy hair to return it to his normal buzz cut, before he goes back to his training.
Meanwhile, the wind girl re-materializes herself right above the clouds, with Usopp flying right next to her.
As soon as the scared sniper sees her, he angrily scowls at her. "Why the hell did you take me?!"
Rose chuckles at the complaint, and instead of answering, points to his puffy hair.
When Usopp notices, he flinches and gets to work on flattening it out while Rose answers him. "Sorry about the sudden lift, but I've been needing your help with something for a while."
He hums in curiosity just when the hair under his hat turns to normal. "What kind of help?"
"This kind…" She turns her right palm up, creates an orb of wind, then throws it to her right.
However, when it travels through the sky, it suddenly makes a sharp left hand turn until it fades off into the air. "Every time I throw my rasengans, they make some kind of crazy turn instead of going straight. It caused me to miss a hit during my fight with Aokiji. Are there any tips that you can teach me on how to aim?"
Usopp is surprised that one of the fighters is actually asking for his help, but he's more than happy to help if it can get him out of the sky. "I'll help, but can you put us down please?"
Rose happily obliges as she slowly descends them towards the ship to begin her new plan. Because of how busy she'll be in helping Robin in Water Seven, it will be hard to stop Usopp and Luffy's fight as well. If she can boosts Usopp's confidence a bit before they reach the island though, maybe she can help him see that he's just as important in the crew as everyone else is.
With this goal in mind, she sets the two of them on the front deck, right behind the figurehead, and gives him an eager smile. "Ok teacher, what do we do first?"
He's surprised by being called 'teacher', but he's not complaining at all. In fact, it's feeding his ego enough to give him a smug grin. "Well first, we need to see how well you aim is without your power."
He takes out his sling shot and an iron pellet, hands them to her, then rushes to a barrel that's ten feet away from her. He goes into his bag, sets an old can, that's decorated with small dents, on top of the barrel and walks back to his student. "Let's see if you can shoot this from where you're standing. Try your best to focus."
Rose nods to the instructions as she loads the slingshot, pulls back the string and aims. She keeps both of her eyes focused on the target. After a few seconds of adjusting her position, she fires the slingshot and managed to hit the top right corner of the can, but it didn't fall over.
Usopp hums at the graze that she made to the piece of aluminum. "Not bad, you're a bit stiff but your aim is pretty normal. When you were making that shot it got me thinking. Can you show me your rasengan again? This time with both hands."
The wind girl lifts her hands up to the level of her chest, with her palms facing the sky, and creates two ransengans that cover the palm of her hands.
As soon as the orbs are made, the sniper takes a closer look at her creations. More so on which direction the strange gusts are making, and then takes a step back. "Ok, now throw them both at the can."
Rose does what she's told by reeling her hands back and throws them like baseballs. As expected though, the balls make a sharp turn in opposite directions, halfway on their journey, and flies to the ocean until they fade away.
Even though it was expected, it doesn't take away Rose's disappointment of it still causing this problem.
As for the teacher though, he grins at the outcome. "I think I've figured it out. The balls are flying based on which hand you're throwing it."
She hums in confusion, so he gets to work on explaining. "When you created them, they rotated in the same direction as the hands you used. Have you ever tried to use both hands when you were making them?"
Rose is taken aback by the explanation, because she never once thought of that possibility. "I never tried that, hang on!"
She puts her wrists together, with her palms facing out, and focuses on creating a rasengan that's twice the size as before. As soon as it's stable, she throws her arms forward to launch the ball at her target.
Both of them stare at the flying ball with intensive hope that it doesn't turn, and to their shock and happiness, it didn't turn once when it reached the target!
As soon as the can was hit, it flew with the still powerful orb, through the wall, and into the kitchen!
Both Rose and Usopp flinch at the sound of pots and pans falling, as well as a person, before they hear Sanji's voice. "WHO THE HELL WRECKED MY CABINET?!"
Rose didn't take any chances and flies up with Usopp to the crow's nest, just when Zoro walks down the stair to get something to drink, and the angry chef, with ten towering bumps on top of his head from the falling pans, rushes out with the can in his hand!
As soon as Sanji sees the moss head, he immediately assumes that he did it through his training. "YOU!"
Zoro hums in confusion, but flinches back when he sees Sanji charging at him like a mad bull!
He wastes no time in getting his swords out to block Sanji's kick! "YOU WANNA GO SHITTY COOK?!"
"BRING IT MOSS BALL!" Sanji jumps back, then the two of them charge in for a leg and sword brawl!
Rose and Usopp peek over the edge of the crow's nest to watch the fight go all over the place with neither side backing down. As soon as they travel to the back deck, both pirates look to each other, then burst out laughing from the crazy shot!
Usopp holds onto his stomach and rolls around, while Rose pounds her fist on the rail with one hand, and holds her stomach with the other.
The wind girl is the first to recover as she catches her breath and wipes the tears away from her eyes. "Oh god, that was awesome. Did you see his face?!"
"That was priceless! And that shot was great!" Usopp says as he settles down. He looks at her hands and starts thinking about different strategies with her wind. "You know, this quirk in your power can be pretty useful to fake out people."
Rose happily nods to that plan and clenches her fists in excitement. "Yea, that'd be awesome! Aokiji won't know what hit him next time!"
Usopp flinches at the mention of the admiral, and starts to remember how weak he was against him. "Right, we'll probably see him again..."
Rose loses her excitement from his comment, and can tell that he's doubting himself. She softly frowns at what he could be thinking, and does the first thing she could think of. "Usopp…"
He turns his head to her only to earn a karate chop to the forehead!
Usopp groans from the rough his and rubs his aching forehead with both hands. "What the hell was that for?!"
"For doubting your strength." Rose bluntly says, which causes him to flinch.
"W-what are you talking about?"
"I can tell since we left the island that you've been worried about being strong enough for what's ahead."
Usopp is surprised by her analysis, but she's right. The further they travel into the Grand Line, the stronger their enemies seem to keep getting. He knows that it can't be avoided with how famous the crew is getting, but he doesn't know how much longer he can last…
He frowns at the doubtful thoughts and looks away from her. "It's that obvious?"
She just hums before she gives him a soft look, and tries to lift up his spirits. "I know that the last fight was scary, but you're not weak. We all rely on you."
Usopp scoffs at the claim, because that doesn't sound true at all. "Please, I'm always the one getting beat up."
"That's because you're more suited for sniping. I've seen a lot of shooters, but I've never seen anyone else shoot with an accuracy and range like yours. And haven't you noticed how cool your inventions are? That clima-tact you designed turned Nami into a weather witch!"
Usopp is surprised by the encouragement, but one look can tell that she's being honest. The wind girl wasn't done yet though, because she looks over at the figurehead and points to the goat. "And let's not forget Merry, if it wasn't for your skills, I don't know how she would've made it this far. I'm pretty sure she'd say the same thing."
"She did..."
Rose jolts at the answer and sees the sniper holding a weak smile on his face as he looks to the figurehead. "Back on Skypiea, when she became a spirit, she thanked me for the help when we were working together, and said 'I couldn't have made it here without you.'"
The wind girl can feel an arrow of emotions hit her heart from Merry's sweet comment. If she said anything about it though, she doesn't know if her eyes will stay dry.
Usopp on the other hand, starts to feel his confidence return. To show it, he takes out his slingshot and gives his friend his signature smirk. "And I don't just help with Merry's repairs! I can blast away any ship that threatens her with a cannon! Let's make some targets and practice our aim together!"
Rose brightens up at the suggestion and is more than willing to accept, by taking him back down to the front deck.
With Zoro and Sanji still duking it out in the back deck it's perfectly safe for them to train, so they get to work on finding pieces of junk.
As they find some target materials, Luffy and Chopper come outside from their game of hide and seek to see them hard at work.
"What are you doing?" Luffy asks when he watches Rose collecting a bunch of metal plates that weren't used in Merry's repairs.
"Usopp and I are doing target practice." She answers him while Usopp clears up the top of a barrel that's by the wall.
Once he steps back, Rose stands the sturdy sheet of metal on top of it, and against the wall, to make a position for the target.
For the final touches, Usopp grabs a can of red and white paint, and a small brush from his bag, and paints a red circular target, that almost hits the edges of the plate. With a smaller white circle painted at the center of the target, the sniper switches out his art supplies for a group of slingshots, and a few clear bags of small paint pellets. "To avoid destroying the ship with your powers, let's just work on your aim with these."
"Works for me." Rose answers as she takes one of the slingshots and a pouch holding blue pellets.
"Can I try too?" Chopper asks with eager stars in his eyes.
"Yea, me too!" Luffy says with eagerness.
Usopp chuckles at their excitement before he gives them each a slingshot with a bag of pink pellet for Chopper, and red ammo for his captain. "Works for me, we'll all shoot from the figurehead. The first one to miss the target is the loser."
The others grunt in agreement as they take their places at the front of the ship with a prideful smirk on their faces.
"I'll show you all how it's done." Usopp calls out when he takes a green paint pellet from his bag, loads it up on his slingshot, and fires a perfect shot at the target.
Chopper fires next and it was close to a miss, but he manages to hit the edge of the target.
Rose steps forward and manages to hit in between Chopper and Usopp's shots. When Luffy steps up though, he aims so poorly that his pellet flies past the mast and into the hole in the wall that Rose made.
Rose covers her mouth to keep herself from laughing, but Usopp and Chopper show no restraint by laughing at the miss.
Luffy groans at the miss and glares at the laughers. "I want a rematch!"
Rose nods in agreement as she loads up her slingshot, but as soon as she pulls back the band a sneeze comes her way!
"CRA-CHOO!" She sneezes a strong gust of wind that sends her flying, but during the lift off she accidentally shot her paint pellet toward the back deck!
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Everyone flinches at Zoro's yelling, with Sanji's laughing in the background, while Rose flies down next to the guys and watches Zoro storming down the stairs with blue paint decorating the left side of his head!
As soon as Zoro spots the nervous group of shooters, he narrows his eyes at them. He gives off a frightening demonic aura, as he grabs his sword, and pulls it out of his sheathe. "I'm giving you three seconds…"
The pirates don't waste any time by making a run for it below deck, but Zoro doesn't give chase. Instead, he releases a dark chuckle as he sheaths his sword, then walks into the kitchen to get a drink and let the clowns writhe in their own fear.
The four pirates didn't know that when they split up to hide. Usopp and Chopper rush over in the guys' room while Luffy follows Rose into the girls' room and head into the closet!
Luffy closes the door behind them, and stands across from Rose in the dark, crammed, space, but he can barely see in front of his face. "Where are you?"
"I'm here." Rose answers by patting his shoulder.
Luffy sighs in relief, but when they hear footsteps nearby, he doesn't take any chances by grabbing the hand that's on his face, and pulls her forward.
She yelps from the grab when her face hits Luffy's shoulder and can feel a pair of rubber arms wrapping around her protectively. She can't help but feel flattered, but when she hears the steps getting closer, she gets ready for a fight by using both her hands to create a wind orb and is ready to fire.
However, when the door opens to the crew's archaeologist instead, she claps her hands together to destroy the orb, and feels a strong gust hit her face.
Robin giggles at the cancelled attack when she sees Luffy coughing out her long hair, that got blown into his mouth, then looks to see who's at the door. "Hey Robin."
"Hello Captain-san and Wind-chan, pardon me." She creates a hand on the stop shelf and tosses down a pair of stylish sandals for her. "Enjoy your cuddle session."
"We're not having a cuddle session!" Rose answers, but she only walks away with the door still open for light to shine on them.
Rose groans at the misinterpretation, but when she tries to pull away from the hug, Luffy won't let her. She hums in confusion when she faces her smiling captain. "You can let go, you know."
"Don't wanna." Luffy bluntly answers, and makes his point by lightly squeezing her.
She blushes from his words, and the tight embrace, but it's not like she minds since they're alone.
When Luffy sees her blush, and that she's not trying to leave, he's happy but the conversation at breakfast still bugs him. "Hey, why don't you want to share a room with me?"
Rose tenses up at the question and leans back to see that he's completely serious about moving into a bedroom with her.
As for her, she needs time to get things settled in her head, because of how sudden everything started between them. Especially since she needs to find a perfect moment to tell him the truth about her origins.
She definitely wants to wait until at least after the Enies Lobby arc, for Robin's sake, but she still needs to see how things stand after that. That means until that moment comes, all she can do is buy some time by giving him a nervous look. "I'm still wrapping my head around the fact we're a real live couple. I just don't want us to move too fast. Can we please wait until after we get a shipwright before talking about it?"
Luffy softly frowns at the request, but he doesn't want her to be uncomfortable, so he nods to her. "Alright, but we will get one sooner or later."
"Of course." She grins as she leans up and gives him a kiss on the cheek as a sign of thanks.
However, when she leans back, she grows confused when she sees him giving her a small pout. "You missed!"
She goes to ask him what he meant, but it turns into a squeak when he locks lips with her. What's more she had her mouth open which left him a perfect opportunity to stick his tongue in!
Rose yelps in surprise of the sloppy kiss, when she feels the wet appendage exploring her mouth, and can't believe that he knew how to do this! She won't let him do what he wants though, because as soon as she regains her senses, she battles his tongue for dominance.
As the two tongues wrestle each other, with both being evenly matched, Luffy yelps when he feels something strange and pulls back.
Rose leaned a little forward from the sudden pull, but when his lips are off her, she leans back in confusion. "Are you ok?"
"My moush fills quird..."
Both pirates widen their eyes at Luffy's slurred answer before the captain tries to speak again. "Thwhat's shoing on?"
Rose sees something in his mouth when he tried speaking, and has an idea of what happened. "Open your mouth."
Luffy does as he's told, and she confirms her suspicions when she sees Luffy's stretched tongue somehow got tied in a triple knot during their kiss! "You got fucking tongue tied!"
"Thwat?! Thwat fu I fu?!"
"Stick your tongue out." Rose orders which Luffy obeys by stretching his tongue a foot out for her to get a full view of the tangles mess.
She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from laughing, at the result of his attempt for a make out session, and helps by gently grabbing the knot with both hands and undoing the knot.
The brunette can hear a few whimpers from her captain from the pain, but they didn't last because in a matter of seconds, she untangles him, and releases the tongue for it to reel back into its owner's mouth like a lizard.
She finally lets out a few giggles when she sees him slurp his tongue back, which causes a pout to grow on Luffy's face. "It's not that funny..."
Rose settles down to a sheepish grin before she hugs him. "Sorry, I couldn't help it. What made you want to try French kissing anyway?"
Luffy blinks at the weird term for making out, and grows confused. "'French kissing?'"
She tenses up from accidentally using a term from her world and awkwardly looks away from him. "It's a term used in my homeland. It basically means kissing while using your tongue."
With that explanation, he doesn't give the term another thought, and gives her a friendly grin. "Oh, when I was a kid, I saw couples sneak into the woods to do that from time to time. I thought I'd give it a try too."
A blush erupts on the brunette's face from that story, and starts to worry about what else he learned in those woods. Thankfully, she doesn't have much time to think about that when she sees a crestfallen look on her lover's face. "It doesn't look like I did it right though..."
Rose can feel her heart being stabbed from the guilty look, and to snap him out of it, she holds his shoulders, dips him down, much to his surprise, and gives him a small smirk. "That's what practice is for. You in?"
Luffy widens his eyes to the suggestion before he brightens up with a big smile, and wraps his arms around her neck. "Yea!"
They lean in for the next session, but just as their lips make contact, the chef's voice fills the air. "GUYS, COME UP FOR LUNCH!"
Luffy immediately pulls away with a large grin at the mention of food, but to Rose's surprise, he didn't burst out the door.
Instead, he just waits by the door, looks back at her, and holds a hand out to her. "Let's go eat."
When she sees that he's actually waiting to go with her, she happily takes his hand and doesn't let go until they reach the kitchen together to join the others.
*********************************************
With everything settling down for the afternoon, the only noise that can be heard outside is the sound of swords clashing from Rose and Zoro's sparring.
Rose was able to keep step to step with the swordsman, along with the blows, but with each strike she would make, he would block, but the same results happen to him.
"You getting slow there Zoro?" Rose smugly asks when she goes for a side strike, but he blocks and goes for a low sweep only for her to jump back and gets ready to charge.
"The only one being worn down is you airhead!" Zoro taunts her as the two fighters charge one another and gets back to the fray.
Rose gives an empty chuckle at the annoying nickname as they go back and forth with their strikes. "Can't you think of a better name than that, you fucking hedge head?!"
"You're one to talk!" Zoro bites back as he blocks a head strike and tries to push the weapon out of her hands, but she keeps a strong grip on the handle.
She grins at how this is getting to be one of the longest fights that they've had together, and keeps the ball rolling by pulling her sword back and continues a barrage of strikes to keep up the momentum. "Hey, I don't know if I said this before, but thanks for sparring with me."
Zoro grows confused by the gratitude, but it doesn't affect his movements at all in the fight. "Why the hell would you be thanking me for this? I just need more practice with one sword style in case some of mine break."
She holds back from chuckling at the excuse, and gives him a grin as they keep on fighting.
As Zoro blocks up another strike, he looks at his shorter friend, and doesn't know what to do with her.
He's glad that she and Luffy are together now, and he got a good amount of cash from Usopp thanks to the bet. However, with them having faced Aokiji because of not only Robin, but Rose as well, he's starting to wonder if keeping her origins a secret is best for everyone.
After the next blocked strike, he makes this worry clear to his sparring partner. "Hey, you and Robin have been clearing things up with each other yea?"
Rose grows confused by the sudden question, as she goes for another block, but she has no trouble answering. "Yea, after the whole Aokiji situation, we've grown to trust one another a bit."
"Enough to tell everyone your secret now?" Zoro bluntly asks which causes Rose to hitch in her next strike, and give Zoro the perfect opportunity to hit her left side, with the blunt side of his sword, to knock her down.
She rolls on the floor a little before she lands on her right side, with her right hand still holding onto her weapon. She groans from the pain, but doesn't let it stop her from slowly standing up and glaring at the swordsman. "Pulling that crap out of nowhere to end the fight was fucking cheap."
"I'm being serious. If things have smoothed over between you and Robin, you shouldn't have a problem telling them now."
"It's not that simple."
"What's not simple? I know, and I've gotten over it. So will the others."
The only problem for her is that he doesn't fully know what that secret is. Sure, he knows about where she came from and her knowledge, but not the piece about it coming from the crew's adventures. She's definitely grateful that Zoro has accepted most of her secret, but for the entire truth to come out right now would lead to too many problems. When she's ready to tell Luffy, she wants to be able to tell everybody, so all she can do is buy time.
She takes in a small breath to steel herself to have to hold this in and softly frowns to her friend. "I'm sorry, but I just want to make sure I'm ready. I promise, I'm going to tell them soon, but I can't right now..."
Zoro can't say that he likes the answer, but he knows that this is her secret to tell. All he can really do now is keep her going in the right direction. "Fine, but you gotta tell them sooner or later."
She lets out a sigh of relief of him letting it go for now, and gives him a small grin. "Believe me I know, and don't think I'm not grateful. If you ever want help with anything, let me know."
"Funny you should say that." Zoro says with a smirk before he puts the sword he's holding into her free hand.
Rose grows confused for a moment but it changes to shock when she sees him grabbing his other two swords. "Training with one sword gets boring after a while, but I need a sparring partner in two-sword styles. Think you're brave enough?"
The sword student is more than surprised by the offer, because they've only been training in one sword since her recruitment. However, there's no way she'd give up the chance to level up, so she gets in a stance, with the blunt sides of the blades facing her opponent. "More than enough chia pet!"
Zoro smirks at challenge and intends to make her pay for the nickname by charging at her with the strength of a lion, and beats her in every sparring match they have for the rest of the afternoon.
Only the sound of Sanji calling out that dinner was ready could stop the two swordsmen from their string of matches.
While neither side wanted to stop, both of their growling stomachs protested too much for them to ignore their hunger, so they finally left to join the others in a much deserved meal.
********************************************
After a much needed shower from all the training, Rose relaxes on her bed, in a t-shirt and sweatpants while reading up on the different constellations in this world.
On the opposite side of the room, Robin and Nami are sitting across from each other on the floor, surrounded by dozens of small bottles of nail polish for them to choose to paint each other's fingernails with.
Robin keeps her usual grin on her face while she paints Nami's nails a bright pink color. As soon as she's done, Nami looks to Rose and gives her a friendly grin. "Hey Rose, can you use your wind to dry my nails?"
Rose knits her eyebrows at the weird request and sits up with her hands still on her book. "Are you sure you want me to do that after the hair fiasco today?"
"I just need a small gust. If you do this, we can forget about what happened today."
The wind girl doesn't see why not, so she shrugs as she drops the book, and holds her hand out forward to blow a small, cool, gust on Nami's hands.
After a few seconds, she stops the wind, approaches Nami, and bends down to gently pat her nails to see that they're dry. "You're good to go."
Nami takes a look at her hands and grins at the outcome before she holds up a red bottle for the wind girl to see. "Thanks, you want us to do yours?"
Rose is slightly surprised by the invitation, but before she could politely refuse, Robin takes a hold of her right hand, and pulls her down. "It doesn't hurt to join in sometimes Wind-chan."
The brunette doesn't know what to say to that, so she just nods and readjusts herself so she's sitting cross-legged in front of the pair, and points to the small bottle of navy blue polish. "Fine, but I've never done this, so probably best if I don't touch your nails Robin."
"Fair enough." Robin answers as she creates six arms off the floor, with two of them holding Rose's hands palms down, the other two holding identical bottles of the color she chose, and the final pair grabbing the brushes to paint the skinny nails.
Nami is surprised by the use of Robin's powers, before she grabs a bottle of dark purple polish for Robin. "What do you think of this one?"
The archaeologist nods to the color before she holds her hands out to receive the same treatment that she gave Nami. "Thank you Navigator-san."
As Nami paints her friend's nails, Rose looks at the cloned hands with stars in her when she sees that, one by one, each fingernail is turning purple with each stroke of the brush. "Whoa, that's so cool!"
Robin giggles at Rose's joyful reaction to her powers before she takes a look at the work she did, and is satisfied with the dark blue color on each finger. Once she finished the last stroke, her limbs release Rose's hands, place the bottles down, and to Rose's disappointment, allows her cloned limbs to vanish into a flurry of flower petals. "You're all set Wind-chan."
As soon as Rose brings her attention back to her own nails, she's really impressed by the dark color. She starts to understand why most girls like to do this, but instead of voicing her thoughts, she creates a small gust on her hands like what she did for Nami, and dries them off in a matter of seconds.
When Nami is finished with Robin's fingers, Rose provides her the same treatment as a way to repay her for the paint job. "Here ya go. What do you guys wanna do after this?"
"I have night watch tonight, so I should go to the crow's nest when you're done." Robin answers before she takes a look to see that the sun has finished setting. Once Rose is done with her wind, she grins at the new color before she stands up and heads out to spend the rest of the night on watch.
Nami is slightly disappointed that Robin had to go, but she wants to keep the schedule fair, so she lets her go. Instead, she looks to the wind girl, and gives her a curious look. "Was this really your first time having your nails painted?"
Rose nods to her, but she soon becomes fearful when she sees a sinister smirk on her face. "Oh? What other makeup stuff haven't you learned yet?"
Not knowing how to get out of this, she shifts her eyes everywhere while trying to lie. "I-I know plenty of shit about makeup…"
Nami sweat drops at the terrible lie, and sighs in disappointment. "You and Luffy are meant to be together. Neither of you can lie for shit."
"Rude…" Rose pouts, but Nami doesn't act offended at all.
Instead, she grabs the bottles of nail polish and puts them back in her makeup cabinet, then looks for other stuff to use on both herself and Rose. "I get that you don't like makeup, and have no interest in it, but it's important to know how to put it on."
"What use would makeup be besides to cover my freckles?" Rose asks in disbelief of there being other uses than beauty.
"If we need to put on disguises, this can be a useful skill. I can't tell you how many times these skills helped in my thieving days." Nami answers as she grabs each piece of makeup tool she can find from lipstick to a case of eye shadow.
Rose knits her eyebrows at the excuse, that's a valid point in her eyes, before Nami sits across from her and sets the tools in front of her.
Nami can tell that her friend is still unsure about this, so she gives her one more reason to let her practice her makeup skills on her. "You know, if you and Luffy have a kid that wants to try makeup, they'd turn to you first. Wouldn't you want to give them their first makeover?"
"It's too quick to talk about that!" Rose blurts out with a bright blush on her face, which gets a good laugh out of the navigator.
The shy girl groans at her laughter, and covers her face to hide the blush, that's growing from the picture of a small girl, with Luffy's hair color and smile, along with her freckles and eyes, asking to put makeup on her, pops up in her mind.
If everything works out for them, she'd love to have a child with Luffy one day and teach them all sorts of stuff just as her parents tried to do. To do that though, she needs to be open to all sorts of experiences…
She takes a deep breath to steel her nerves, just as Nami is recovering from her laughing fit, and takes her hands down to reveal the weak remnants of her blush. "Alright, you practice on me, and I'll practice on you?"
Nami nods with a smile of victory, as she picks up a stick of pink lipstick and opens the cap. "Let's get to work!"
After fifteen minutes of the two girls having their makeover, Luffy walks towards the closed door of the girls' room to try to be allowed to sleep with Rose without getting whacked.
As soon as he touches the doorknob, he hears a small shriek and breaks down the door with his fists ready for a fight!
However, instead of getting a fight, he sees Nami looking at the mirror with a horrified look on her blotched face from all the messed up makeup on her face. There's too much blush on her face, her eyeliner is out of whack with scraggly black lines coming out of her eyes, one eyelash too long and the other too short, and even her pink lipstick is lopsided badly enough to make her look like a creepy clown.
She forces herself to look away from the mirror and grows angry at the girl responsible. "How the hell did this happen?!"
"I don't know, I'm so sorry!" Rose hastily apologizes while keeping her head low.
"What are you guys doing?" Luffy asks which gains the attention of both the girls.
The wind girl knows that Nami is in no mood, so she goes up to Luffy and blocks his view of Nami. "J-just practicing some stuff."
She looks over to Nami and gives her one last apologetic look. "Sorry again…"
She grabs Luffy's hand and leads him away from the room to give Nami the peace she needs to fix her face.
As she grabs a towel from her closet, she calms down, because this was partly her fault for having Rose use her as a test dummy instead of her. Still, for her to be this bad with makeup is too hard to believe. Next time, she won't give up until she can be halfway decent with this.
With that plan set in her mind, she cleans up her face, puts the makeup away, and goes to bed while coming up with decent tactics to teach the tomboy of a crew mate how to put on makeup.
Meanwhile, Rose drags Luffy all the way out to the deck, in case Nami went to the bathroom, and stops when they reach the railing.
As soon as they stop, Rose sighs in relief before she looks to her lover with a shy grin. "Sorry about that Luffy. Nami was trying to teach me how to put on makeup, but that didn't end well…"
Luffy is surprised by the explanation, but with a closer look he can see that Nami had done the same thing to Rose, but did so much better. The eyeliner brought out the size of her eyes with her eyelashes giving them a perfect frame, the dark pink lipstick is placed on to perfection, but there was cover up hiding her freckles, that he likes so much.
He frowns at the changes that were made on her, and wants her back to normal as soon as possible. "Why were you guys doing this?"
Rose can only shrug at him, before she looks to the ocean, and gives him a vague answer. "Nami said that this can help with disguises and shit, but I think she just wanted to put makeup on me. I don't think she'll want to anymore thanks to what I did though..."
She looks over at Luffy and grows confused when she sees him frowning at her. "What, is the makeup that weird?"
"Yea, I like the way you normally look better. I miss your freckles." Luffy answers with a small pout, and no knowledge of how happy those words made his lover.
It was easy to tell with the big smile on her face though, and if that's not enough, she scoots closer to him and gives him a peck on the cheek. "You're too great, you know that?"
Even though Luffy was glad he got a compliment, he still looks annoyed when she wraps his arms around her and makes sure they're facing each other. "Your aim really sucks."
Rose goes to protest, but he stops her by diving in and using his lips to close the distance between them.
The wind girl doesn't waste any time by leaning in to kiss him back and wrapping her arms loosely around his neck.
Luffy doesn't stop there, because he tries to make up for the tongue tie by sticking his tongue in through the small opening in her mouth.
Rose moans at the intrusion, but battles his tongue for dominance with her own.
Instead of getting tongue tied, Luffy manages to win the battle and explore her mouth with both of them loving every bit of it. In a few seconds, he pulls back from how tiring it is and catches his breath.
Rose doesn't fare any better as she got so distracted from the kiss that she couldn't think to use her wind to get the air she needed to keep going.
As soon as she regains some of her composure, she looks at her lover's face, and giggles when she sees pink on his lips and on his cheek.
Unaware of the leftover lipstick, Luffy grows confused by her laughter. "What's up?"
"My lipstick got on your face."
"What?!" Luffy asks in horror before he wipes his lips with the back of his hand.
All Rose can do is laugh as she watches it get on the back of his hand, before she takes it and leads him back inside. "Come on, I'll help you get it off."
Luffy nods as he lets her bring him back inside. "Fine, but afterwards, can we sleep together again?"
Rose shouldn't be surprised that he'd ask again, but to be honest, she likes cuddling with him too much to say no. She never has a bad dream when she sleeps with him, and feels safe in his arms, so she needs their cuddling just as much as he does if not more. She's too stubborn to tell him that though, so all she does is give him a smile just as she brings him to the bathroom. "Yea, alright. If Nami's asleep, then we shouldn't have any problems."
Luffy beams at the answer, and gives her a hug before they get the makeup off of them, and head off to sleep together on Rose's futon.
With everyone else fast asleep in their rooms, Robin can enjoy her night watch in peace. As Robin makes sure that the lantern above her is lit, she can't help but enjoy the peace that the crew has been experiencing since they left Long Ring Island. These kinds of days bring her the most joy because at least for a moment, she's able to forget her troubles and enjoy being with her friends.
And with them asleep, all she can do now is make sure they're safe while she sits under the light of the lantern hanging above her and catch up on her history book.
What she doesn't notice though, is that those peaceful days are coming to an end. For under the calm waters, halfway to the nearby island there is a young boy, with a seahorse styled instrument in his hand, swimming towards the Going Merry.
When he feels that he's at a good distance between the ship, without getting caught, he stays a few feet below the water, and blows a loud tune towards the ship.
Despite being underwater, the sound manages to carry out towards the ship for every member of the crew to hear.
The sleeping pirates don't wake up to the sound, but as the whistle is carried out, each sleeper's face grows more troubled by the second.
Robin however, grows confused by the sound, but it doesn't bother her that much. When she sees that there's nobody above the surface, she resumes her reading without any problems.
Soon enough the boy stops playing, and swims back to his island in excitement for the chaos of tomorrow to ensue for the unsuspecting pirates.
******************************************
It didn't take long after the boy's foreboding visit for the sun to start rising for the new day with everything seeming normal.
However, as soon as she's fully awake enough to see Luffy, she becomes horrified at waking up next to a guy!
She quickly sits up, with Luffy's rubber arms still around her, and grows more freaked out by the second, because when she looks around, she doesn't recognize the room at all! *WHERE THE FUCK AM I?!*
TO BE CONTINUED