Chopper

All three looked toward Dr. Kureha. She wore a tight black leather jacket and pants, and though the wrinkles on her face were plain to see, she still looked full of energy.

"It's hard to imagine she's 139 years old," Lina couldn't help exclaiming. The woman looked more alive than he did.

"We're here to see a doctor."

Lina got to his feet and gestured for Zoro to speak. "Can you treat his wounds?"

After their mountain-climbing race, Zoro had taken off his only thin shirt. His upper body was bare, revealing wounds that spread across him like a hideous centipede crawling over his body.

"What kind of people are you?" Dr. Kureha didn't answer directly, simply asking a brief question. Her eyes were wary.

"We're pirates!" Luffy replied with a grin.

Hearing that, Chopper—who was hiding behind Dr. Kureha, clutching his legs with both hands—poked out his little head and looked at them curiously. "Pirates, like Dr. Hiriluk talked about..."

"I can treat him."

After looking them over for a moment, Dr. Kureha spoke coolly. A teasing smile tugged at her lips. "If you can afford my price..."

"How much?"

Lina asked with a frown. He'd heard from Dalton that this doctor, known as the Witch, charged outrageous prices for her treatments.

If the price was too high, they could just take Chopper with them and have Zoro's wounds treated afterward.

"Let's see... How about twenty million berries?"

That's cheap!!!

Lina froze. No, twenty million was definitely a lot—it would cover an ordinary family's expenses for years.

He was just so rich that he'd reacted that way. Though he thought it was cheap, he immediately started cursing aloud:

"You old hag! You're ripping us off! My friend only has a few minor wounds. Look, he even climbed Drum Mountain with his bare hands. He's full of energy, and you have the nerve to charge us twenty million?!"

"Take it or leave it," Dr. Kureha said impatiently. "I said twenty million, so it's twenty million. If you can't pay, quit bothering me."

Lina looked furious. He reached into his shirt, making a show of preparing to draw his gun.

Dr. Kureha's face darkened. Several throwing knives slid from her sleeve.

Kureha gripped the knives, ready to throw them.

Kureha froze.

Kureha slowly lowered her hand.

"Twenty million. Get to work."

Lina had pulled a stack of berries from his shirt. He held it out as if to say, "Here, take it," and spoke calmly.

After all that, she couldn't raise the price again, could she?

Kureha: "..."

"You're an interesting kid. Come with me."

The three followed Kureha and Chopper into the castle. Zoro was being treated in the operating room, and his pig-like howls kept ringing out.

In the hall, Lina and Luffy were trying to recruit Chopper. Though Chopper was afraid after learning they were pirates, curiosity drove him to boldly chat with them.

"Hey, hey, do you have a pirate flag?" Chopper asked eagerly.

"Shishishi, of course! I'll draw it for you."

Luffy grinned and grabbed some paper and a pen. "Here! It looks like this!"

He held up the drawing. On it was a crooked skull wearing an... um... a straw hat, more or less. It looked nothing like their actual pirate flag.

Lina, lounging on the sofa with a cup of tea, said in exasperation, "Luffy, your drawing is just so..."

"Wow! That's so cool!!"

"Pfft—! What's cool about it?!"

Lina nearly spat out his tea. So this was the kind of reindeer Chopper was. He gave Chopper a strange look and said, "But since you're so eager to be a pirate, why not just set sail with us?"

"Yeah, yeah! Come with us, Chopper," Luffy added with a smile.

The excitement on Chopper's face slowly gave way to hesitation. Of course he dreamed of becoming a pirate. Dr. Hiriluk had once been a pirate, but...

"I can't become a pirate..." Chopper said dejectedly, his eyes dimming.

What held him back was himself.

"Why not?"

"Stop asking me!" Chopper turned and ran off.

"Strange. Are there pirates who can't become pirates?"

Luffy squatted on the chair like a monkey, staring in confusion in the direction Chopper had run.

Bang.

Just then, the operating-room door opened. In truth, it was just a bedroom. After Wapol left, Kureha had taken over the castle and remodeled it.

"All done. Let him lie down for a while longer."

Dr. Kureha dusted off her hands and sat down. She picked up the bottle of liquor on the table, leaned back against the sofa, and took a long swig. "You two little brats actually tried to steal my pet while I wasn't looking."

"Ahaha, you caught us," Luffy laughed, utterly unfazed at being exposed.

"If you want to take him with you, go ahead." Kureha didn't seem to mind. She raised the corners of her mouth in a teasing smile. "If you can manage it, that is."

"Sounds like you'd be happy to let him go," Lina said with a chuckle, lighting a cigarette. He even offered her one; he'd noticed the ashtray on the table.

"He's always wanted to be a pirate," Kureha replied as she took the cigarette.

"Then why doesn't he set sail?"

"Because he's sick. Sick in his heart. There's nothing even I can do for that."

She lifted her head and blew out a ring of smoke. Closing her eyes as if recalling the past, Kureha slowly told them about Chopper's history.

"Because he was born with a blue nose, the others rejected him from the moment he was born. He was always left alone, trailing behind the herd of reindeer, never accepted.

"Later, he accidentally ate a Devil Fruit. The reindeer started treating him like an outsider and attacked him. Covered in wounds, he made his way to a human village. You've seen what he looks like, so you can guess what happened: they treated him like a monster.

"People's instinctive fear of the unknown kept them from accepting that monster. They cursed at him, swung blades at him, even shot at him—anything to drive him away."

Kureha seemed thirsty. She took a long swig of liquor, then continued:

"Until that man appeared: Hiriluk, a third-rate doctor with terrible medical skills. He spent all day dreaming up a cure-all, talking nonsense about making cherry blossoms bloom in this country.

"And yet it was precisely that man who saved a monster rejected by both his own kind and humans..."

Kureha finished her drink and set the empty bottle on the finely crafted marble table. She looked disgusted as she said,

"After his adoptive father died, that kid started pestering me, saying he wanted to become a doctor who could cure every disease. What a fool."

Kureha looked at the two of them seriously. "He's afraid of being hurt again, so he's shut himself off. Little by little, he's even come to believe that he really is a monster. So..."

Kureha paused, then gave them a teasing look. "If you think you can do it, go ahead and try."

"Shishishi, I've decided."

Luffy grinned broadly. "I'm definitely going to make him our crewmate!"

"He'll fit right in. Our crew is full of monsters," Lina said with a chuckle as he stood and rolled up his dark blue sleeves. "Let's go, Luffy. I can't wait."

"Shishishi! Operation Capture Chopper, begin!" Luffy shouted excitedly, rushing out ahead of him.

"Idiots!"

Watching the two run off, Dr. Kureha spat out the words and opened another bottle of liquor. She wondered how she'd managed to live past a hundred.

"Idiots really do attract each other."

Kureha sank back into the soft sofa cushions and stared blankly at the ceiling, a hint of sadness in her eyes.

"So you're leaving, Chopper."