Kuri, Wano Country, outskirts of Amigasa Village.
"Wow! Komachiyo, please go slower! This girl can't hold on!"
A golden-furred komainu raced through the forest. The small girl on its back clung tightly to its fur, shouting with difficulty.
"Woof, woof!"
The komainu carrying her turned its head and barked twice, its wagging tail pointing toward the wild boar ahead.
It seemed to be complaining to her: if it didn't run fast, how could it catch the prey ahead?
"That's not it!"
The girl seemed to understand the komainu's words. "What this girl means is… there's a cliff ahead!!!"
Hearing the girl's words, the komainu's smug expression froze. Its four legs skidded to a halt, plowing four deep furrows in the ground.
But the inertia of the chase was too strong, carrying the komainu and the wild boar over the edge of the cliff.
"Aaaaaah—!" The girl's scream rang out.
The wind from the fall made it hard for her to open her eyes. In her daze, the girl saw a small fishing boat slowly approaching on the sea below.
'Oh no!'
'If Komachiyo's size fell and crushed someone's boat, that would mean paying compensation again.' Just this morning, she had prayed to the gods to save money!
"Get out of the way! Please, move!" The girl shouted with all her might toward the small boat below.
Hearing the voice, the pink-haired girl on the small fishing boat looked up at the sky.
"Oh, what fate!" A smile curled on the girl's delicate face. She turned and snapped her fingers. "Save her, Ace!"
"Fine, fine. You sure know how to boss people around, Sakura-nee!" Ace's tone was light, with a hint of cynicism.
He put down his famous blade, deliberately stomping hard on the small boat, making it rock back and forth.
Before Sakura's fist could deliver justice, he shot into the sky like an arrow, heading straight for the falling boar, dog, and girl.
"Hold on tight!" Ace scooped up the girl in mid-air, then kicked the dog and the boar in the flanks, sending them back to shore.
Thud, thud!
With two dull thuds, the little girl watched as the man flipped the giant beasts, three to four times her size, into the air, sending them crashing hard onto the shore.
Then her vision spun, and in an instant, she was back on land.
"So cool!"
The girl looked up, her wide purple eyes reflecting Ace's tall figure. A feeling of admiration began to grow.
"Alright, your friends are safe. Don't be so reckless in the future. Next time, there might be no one to save you." Ace reached out and rubbed the girl's head, his voice gentle.
He turned to leave but heard a thud behind him.
In his Observation Haki perception, the girl was lying on the ground in a full prostration, her head buried deep.
"Hey, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?" Ace turned back, pulled the girl up, and pressed his hand to her forehead.
"N-no, it's not that... well..." The girl's gaze was intense. "Big brother, this girl's name is Tama. Please let this girl be your companion!!!"
"Pfft!"
Watching the panic and fumbling helplessness on Ace's face, Sakura, who had somehow perched on a tree, couldn't help but laugh.
"Sa-ku-ra-nee!" The freckled boy gritted his teeth, his gaze resentful.
But Sakura completely ignored him, walking over to pick up Tama. "Little one, you have a good eye. This guy is really strong! People in our circle call him the Desolate Blade, acknowledging his power!"
"Really!" Tama's eyes lit up like stars. "This girl knew from the first moment she saw you, big brother, that you were no ordinary person!"
Ace looked as if life had abandoned him, wanting to speak but holding back.
He wanted to explode at this mentor who loved watching the world burn, but he feared her oppressive power and didn't dare.
In the end, he could only watch helplessly as a certain great pirate talked him up to the skies, and as the young girl's admiration for him grew.
'—For some reason, it felt... kind of good?'
"Alright, Sakura-nee, stop messing around. This kid is only four, right? You don't actually want her to come to sea with us, do you?"
Ace's words drew Tama's dissatisfaction. She raised her fists and protested at him: "Big brother, don't underestimate this girl just because she's young!"
Sakura, holding her, chimed in, "That's right, that's right! I was only six when I went to sea!"
Then the two of them widened their big, watery eyes and stared at Ace with accusing looks, as if to say: How can you judge by appearances!
"Fine, you're the captain. Whatever you say." Ace, defeated by Sakura's tormenting, slumped his shoulders and gave up.
"Oh, big sister, you're actually big brother's captain!"
Tama opened her mouth wide and turned her head to look at Sakura, who was holding her.
Actually, from the moment she first saw the two of them, Tama had guessed from Sakura's black coat and the stockings covering her long, slender legs that they were pirates from overseas.
But what she hadn't guessed was that this beautiful, charming big sister was actually the one in charge!
Even if her chest was a little flat and a bit bony.
"I get the feeling you're thinking something very rude." Sakura pinched Tama's cheek.
Tama responded with a cute smile, speaking indistinctly, "Then, big sister, will you let me join you?"
Her persistence instead piqued Ace's interest.
So the freckled boy stepped forward, looked up at Tama being held in Sakura's arms, and asked curiously, "Can you tell me why you're so determined to join us?"
Hearing this, Tama lowered her head, a look of loneliness in her eyes. "If I become a pirate like you, this girl can steal food for everyone in the village! Then everyone won't have to go hungry every day making bamboo hats! And they won't be bullied by the pirates and the Orochi gang who occupy this country!"
"..." Ace opened his mouth, shocked speechless by the girl's determination.
Leaving aside the errors in Tama's naive reasoning for a moment, what truly surprised Ace was that in this Wano Country, even though everyone was working hard for tomorrow, they still couldn't fill their stomachs.
It was a place that drove a girl who could have had a normal life to long to become a human scum of the sea, a man-eating machine.
This reset the lower limit of Ace's understanding, who had grown up in the Goa Kingdom and thought that the Goa nobles were the ultimate trash.
"Can't you just run away from this village?"
Ace swallowed a mouthful of saliva, not even noticing that his own voice had become a little hoarse.
"It's impossible. The strong people have already run into the mountains and become bandits. All that's left in the village are the old, the weak, women, and children." Tama shook her head gently at Ace.
It wasn't just Amigasa Village... this was the situation throughout almost all of Wano.
There were those who served the Shogun Orochi's government in the Flower Capital, those who resisted Orochi and were thrown into the Udon prison, those who became outlaws, and those who joined the Beasts.
The strong young men who supported the functioning of the entire country's apparatus were divided like this. As for the old, the weak, women, and children... in this place, which since ancient times had the tradition of abandoning the elderly, their fate went without saying.
"Well? What do you think of this country?" Sakura put Tama down and looked at him calmly.
Ace's eyebrows trembled. He spoke, "Sakura-nee, I..."