115 Chapter 115

115

A bit earlier,

Kuina sat in a small bakery shop, enjoying her pineapple cake. It was quite good, but nothing noteworthy like Sanji's cooking. Still, one of her hobbies was trying out sweet items from every island she visited. So she was only performing her duty.

While the rest of the crew, —that had bounties on them— made some effort on not standing out, by going through back allies, or not being bold. She did no such thing.

She couldn't actually, most of the good sweatshops were near the center of the Logue Town. So she had made an effort to wear a pair of round sunglasses to hide most of her face.

Not that it was working as people would often look at her with recognizable smiles. It was almost if she was well-known around the area. Weird.

For some reason, all of the shops gave her a good discount on each purchase, so she was quite busy going through each shop and eating her fill.

While some women might feel jealous of how much she could eat in one sitting. It was always like that, because of her fast metabolism and being a very active person.

Also, she was trying to learn Life Return from the Rokushiki techniques, and of the easy tricks, one was digesting foods quickly, and using them rather than letting them be stored as fat cells. Which made her eat twice as much, in order to learn it.

For her, Kuina always needed a lot of food because of her constant sword training, so she had to eat quite a lot since she began Life Return training. Which worked out quite well, for her visit.

Anyway, while she was enjoying her third serving of a whole cake. A small girl approached her, nervously.

And that made Kuina look at the nervous girl, she was holding something behind her back.

"Um… big sister, I have a gift for you." The girl said. Before placing the object on the table, and running off.

The femal waiter that came to serve another cake giggled. "It seems she gave you a gift. It's quite good."

Kuina blinked and looked at the said gift, while the waiter went back towards the kitchen section.

The gift was a Marine hat, but it was a bit different, having white cat-like ears on it.

Kuina blinked. This was unexpected, but then again gaining smiles from random people, getting discounts in all the shops she visited and even random marine soldiers giving her salutes were all strange. So the blade user just shrugged and listed it off as another strange thing that couldn't be explained for the day.

She took the white hat, it looked like any standard marine hat. But had white cat ears as decorations, it kind of looked cute. So she wore it, before looking at the glass window's hollow reflection. It didn't go well with her sunglasses, so she took them off.

Now it looked quite well, matching well with her white kimono.

While Kuina was appreciating her new look, a female marine that was going around with two mairne soldiers, looked at the glass and made eye contact with Kuina. The woman looked a bit older than Kuina and just from the glance, the blade user could tell she was a skilled fighter.

So she was on guard when the woman entered the shop. Kuina stood up from her chair when the woman came near her, with two marines following her.

'Did they recognize me from my bounty poster… I shouldn't have take off my sunglasses.' Kuina said to herself. Her grip tightened on her sword.

"Marine Officer Tashigi, this is quite unprofessional of you. Upset, Hina is Upset." The female marine said. She had a justice coat signifying her rank as a marine captain, and her pink hair stood out quite well with her red suit. "You should be on duty now… the shipment for the sea stone have arrived, and have yet to be picked up. Why are you here?"

"…" Kuina didn't say anything, she was genuinely confused.

Taking her silence as an answer, the female marine spoke again. "I didn't know except such unprofessional behavior from you… while Hina might be upset, Hina can understand. You did great work on managing the base in Logue Town while Smoker went out to Sakura Island. But, if you are feeling overworked you should have taken a formal break. A marine shouldn't be lazing around… not when the likes of Fallen Hero Luffy had been seen around these waters."

"What?" Kuina blinked several times. Did the captain get found out in Logue Town, that would shorten her trip here. She still had a few shops that she didn't try out.

Mistaking Kuina's shock as worry, Hina spoke. "Don't worry, it seems that that so-called hero is too of a coward to come here… and straight for grandline."

"Oh…"

Hina nodded. "You should go to the shipment of sea stones with them…" pointing at the two marines that stood behind Hina. "They were going to the shipment anyways, and I was planning on going there to authorize it. But since I found you here, go with them. After that, you can get back at your tea break. Hina understands the importance of taking a break, but duty comes first."

With that the pink-haired woman went off, her white justice coat fluttering at the wind. "Hm… the weather's quite windy today. Nice hat by the way… you look quite good in it, especially without your glass, good to know that you have tried the lens I recommended. It matches your white kamono… when you have time, help Hina buy a good Kamono, I hear good ones are quite comfortable." With that, she was out of the shop, and into another corner, towards the marine office situated on the island.

Kuina blinked, that was odd. But what was going on… why was she mistaking her for someone else. 'It must be the hat.'

"Officer Tashigi… the shipment of sea stones has been on the doc for quite some time. We should go." One of the marine soldiers said respectfully.

Kuina mindlessly nodded. Captain did say something about sea stones being important. Mainly how it could help against devil fruit user… and it was quite expensive. So…

"Yeah, let's go there." Kuina said, nodding at the soldiers as they both took charge while she followed them.