The teardrops run down,

And fall off his nose,

He cries in dark corners,

Where nobody goes,

You can follow the tracks,

From his eyes to his chin,

Years upon years,

Of letting them win,

And his eyes tell a story,

Of anger and pain,

You think that he's happy,

But just look again,

And the scars of his past,

Hidden under his clothes,

Are a roadmap to places,

That nobody knows,

His smile is now painted,

He's a master of disguise,

And you can see it all,

Just look into his eyes.

-e.h

It has been three years since Natsuki came to the world of pirates. She was kept hidden for her entire life, but that didn't mean she couldn't get any training in.

Her father was nearly back to how he used to be before, though time to time he would drown himself in alcohol.

Her family, as she liked to call her crew, were teachers on her survival when she grew up. Benn taught her with books and history, which she personally liked due to it being one of the few things her 'dictionary' didn't provide.

Yasopp taught her ways with a gun, by the age of twelve, she could get nine out of ten shots on the bullseye, it seemed as though it was because her skills with kunai and shuriken throwing was pretty bad in her past life, since this was a world of opposites.

Rockstar taught her ways in daily chores, since he was still a rookie on the ship, he had to do most chores. Natsuki would help him, though with Rockstar being a perfectionist, he would teach her the correct ways on how to clean wooden floor-boards and glass windows, etcetera.

Lucky Roo taught her the ways of a pirate, how one shouldn't hold a weapon without responsibility, and one should never threaten someone's life without a purpose. He emphasized these points, as it seemed his only son and wife died in the hands of another pirate who was a novice at using a gun, and accidentally killed them.

So Natsuki was sculpted slowly and carefully, in the hands of her family, as a strong and smart young lady. She was more tom-boyish because of living in an environment without a single woman, as well as her past-life being a man, but nobody cared. You wouldn't survive in this world without being even a little bit manly. Not that women couldn't be strong of course, her mother was a perfect example of this, but in the ocean where men dominated, women were sadly set standards by them.

One day, after a battle with another pirate ship, Natsuki was said to be finally allowed to fight with them, with the consent of Benn. Though he offered a price.

"Natsuki. I know how hard you've been working for these three years, and I'm proud to say that you'll probably be able to hold your own ground against at least fifteen novice marines. So as a reward, you can fight with us from now on, though be careful, since this will be the first time for you to take a human's life, and first kill is always the hardest." Benn advised, and Natsuki thought back to her past life, slightly guilty that she hadn't told her family about being a ninja. This wouldn't be her first kill if she counted being Naruto, since she had killed one person, that person being Mizuki, her teacher who hated her as Naruto.

"Yes Benn. I understand."

The next day, Red Scar: their ship was attacked by another marine ship, and Natsuki cracked her knuckles, awaiting her fight with people who didn't know her power, thus underestimating her.

"CHARGE!" The middle commander yelled, seemingly the man of highest position there. His small fleet did as commanded, and jumped on deck, but the crew were already waiting for them.

Natsuki got out two guns and shot each of her eight bullets in her twin revolvers.

They all hit home, and sixteen people lay dead on deck. Her family stared at her, her face hard and motionless, void of empathy. A tear slid down her face as she continued to go around, this time with her sword, cutting down the marines until, with the help of her crew, the only one remaining was the middle commander.

"Mercy! Have Mercy" He whimpered. A hundred of his men were wiped out in less than five minutes, out of them, thirty were killed by a small girl, the rest didn't seem to be even trying.

"If we had mercy, this would've been a marine ship, not a pirate ship." Shanks said and the commander was dead.

They raided the ship and found a peculiar fruit with swirls and curls all over it. It was purple in colour, and Shanks identified it with a label on the box it was in.

"The gum gum fruit. How rare." He took it with him, whilst Natsuki sat down, her adrenaline pumping, vision blurry, sweating like a pig.

"Are you alright Natsu?" Roo asked, giving her a portion of his meat to her.

"Fine, I'm fine. Just a bit tired... Can I go take a nap?"

"Of course you can. Go up to your room. We'll wake you up when it's dinner time." Benn said, and Natsuki tottered up the stairs to her and her father's room.

The men looked at her proudly. Their little girl had just whipped thirty percent of the marine's asses, who wouldn't be proud?

Benn was slightly worried. He tended not to be wrong when it came to an estimate of power. With the amount of training she received, she shouldn't have been able to kill twenty, let alone thirty.

Over the years, he had picked up on a few things about the girl, how she would be watching her father from afar, a sad look in her eyes, how it seemed that there were two or three of them on board, how she would sometimes yell, 'dattebayo!', which made no utter sense.

He had a thought that she was perhaps hiding something from them, but using his observational haki, he knew this wasn't an imposter. He decided to knock on the girl's door, wanting to confirm his doubts.

"Who is it?" a voice called as he knocked.

"It's Benn."

"Come in! Come in!" Came her quick reply, "What's the matter? Is it the battle today?"

"Partly yes, partly no. Natsuki. I know you're hiding something." Benn was not a man who would beat around the bush, and a response was seen in her demeanour immediately.

"What are you talking about?" She asked, her eyes swimming, mouth whistling innocently, her fingers muddling with each other.

"You're a terrible liar. Got to work on that Natsu."

"I know... So, what do you want to know?"

"Why do you watch over Shanks?"

"Because he's my father... but I suppose that's not the answer you want. I'll get to answering that question in a second, I'm sure the other questions you have for me will connect to it. Though before I get to it, can you call him? I want to tell Dad as well." Benn nodded and focused on his captain's haki. He sent his own haki against his, and Shanks was alerted.

"What's wrong!? What are you two doing here?"

"Dad, Benn, there's something I need to tell you guys."

"Did you get your period!? What! What is it!?" Natsuki and Benn groaned. Perhaps it would've been better if he wasn't there...

"No, I haven't dad. There's something I've been keeping from you for three years. Do you believe in second lives?"