Upon arriving at Syrup Village, Hina did not hesitate and immediately marched toward Kaya's house.
She had absolute confidence in her master's words, a man who somehow seemed to know everything.
Because of that, she knew that pirates in disguise were inside that house, slowly poisoning a girl named Kaya.
She was a beautiful blonde girl, but that was not Hina's priority. What truly mattered were the shipwrights who lived on that island.
Hina intended to ask one of them to build a customized ship. In fact, they would create something similar to the Baratie, but on a smaller scale.
It would be a floating restaurant, traveling across the Grand Line and serving the best food from around the world.
Arlo knew he would need to travel through the Grand Line to fulfill the missions given to him by the System. However, there was no reason to assume the identity of a pirate and draw more attention to himself.
Instead, he would disguise himself this way. The slaves he had brought with him would work as waitresses, and Hina herself would be part of the crew.
Of course, they would first disguise themselves by changing their hair color and other features.
Additionally, apparently a man named Sanji would join as the cook. Hina knew nothing about him, but her master assured her that recruiting him would be easy.
The young man would not learn anything about their operations, but he supposedly had great potential to be useful in the future, or something like that.
"Wait, Miss Hina, are you sure we can act so aggressively?" Coby asked nervously. "Don't Marines need permission before arresting a suspected pirate?"
At that exact moment, Hina had just kicked open the door of Kaya's mansion.
She did not intend to waste much time saving that girl. After all, her master had not even ordered her to do so.
He had only asked her to secure the ship. Saving the girl was simply Hina's own decision. She still deeply hated pirates.
"I am not a Marine anymore!" Hina declared irritably.
Ever since she had saved that boy from Alvida's pirates, he had begun following her like a loyal assistant.
Coby seemed to revere her and admired her deeply. On one hand, that was good because he followed her training rigorously. On the other hand, it was starting to irritate her.
"But… don't you want to fight for justice anymore?" Coby asked, shocked by what he had heard. "Didn't you save me from those cruel pirates because you wanted to fight for justice?" he asked again.
Ignoring him, Hina marched inside the house and soon found a butler who perfectly matched the description her master had given her.
That was Kuro.
"What are you doing here?" the man asked, trying to remain calm.
Kuro was certain his disguise was flawless. The Marines should believe he was dead, so why was that woman here?
"For example, did you know that the Marines condemned an impostor in place of the real Captain Kuro?" Hina said, striking him hard in the stomach and knocking him to his knees.
But Kuro was not truly hurt. He simply wanted Hina to lower her guard. Then he would kill her with a single strike.
"Coby, it is time for you to learn the truth about the Marines. If you truly wish to fight for justice, do not join them," Hina said, turning toward the boy.
For some reason, Arlo had asked her to train Coby as much as possible and encourage him to follow his own adventure.
Of course, Kuro tried to take advantage of the opportunity and stab Hina in the back, but his pathetic attempt never had any chance of success.
His blades never reached her. Hina trapped him in a cage before he could even react.
〇〇〇
Meanwhile, Sasha trained, fighting the man who had gained fame after supposedly capturing Kuro.
He was meant to be a Marine captain, a strong man who commanded respect, yet Sasha was dominating him in combat with ease.
He was physically much stronger than she was, but she compensated with flawless technique. She always managed to deflect his attacks in what looked like a truly beautiful dance.
The Marines watching the sparring match were both astonished and frightened. They could see how badly Captain Morgan wanted to win that fight, but he was simply incapable of doing so.
But how had things reached that point?
The problem was that Sasha had arrived in Orange Town too early. Zoro simply was not there yet, so there was no way to rescue him.
Since Sasha wanted to grow stronger quickly and had time to spare, she secretly slipped into the Marine training sessions.
That alone might have gone unnoticed if she had not managed to run longer than all the Marines and perform more push-ups than any of them.
In the end, they questioned who she was, and she was forced to admit that she had seen the soldiers running when she began her own training and decided to join them.
What truly irritated Morgan, however, was when she innocently asked if she could participate in the rest of the day's training.
The issue was that there was no more training. The men were already exhausted, and that had been the hardest session of the week.
Even though it was never her intention, Morgan felt offended that she outperformed his men and decided to train her personally.
However, instead of breaking her spirit or wearing her down, he was the one being pushed to his limits.
At some point, he began attacking with genuine intent to kill her, but he failed miserably, being completely humiliated in front of his men.
Fortunately for Morgan, a Marine came running to report that a small group of pirates had been spotted. More specifically, they were merely common bandits, and normally even ordinary Marines would have been enough to deal with them.
"Our training ends here," Morgan said in a solemn tone. "I have more important matters to handle."
Without another word, he walked away toward the town.
From that day on, almost comically, Sasha became a constant presence at the Marine base.
She participated in every training session, always asking the Marines to teach her whenever she saw someone practicing something she did not know. However, for any skill that did not involve sword fighting, her talent seemed to be nonexistent.
No matter how hard she tried, she simply could not hit a target one meter away with a musket.
That said, she was hardworking and took on any task assigned to her, from cleaning the deck to occasionally helping capture pirates. Because of that, no one truly complained about her presence.