Mark stood at the bow, staring blankly at Cocoyasi Village as it grew farther and farther away.
"Mark, did you ask me when you let Nami join the pirate crew?" Daisy walked up beside Mark and suddenly asked.
"What's wrong?" Mark asked in surprise.
"I'm the pirate crew's navigator now. Did you ask me?" Daisy pouted, looking deeply unhappy.
Mark smacked his forehead. So that was what this was about. He immediately looked embarrassed.
All this time, he had placed Daisy in the role of a Chihuahua. He really had not considered what Daisy herself wanted.
But it had to be said that if Daisy had not identified the sea charts and served as their navigator along the way, they would not only have failed to find Cocoyasi Village—they might have lost their way long ago.
"I'm really sorry, Daisy... I've been making decisions on my own all this time." Mark openly admitted his mistake.
Daisy was not a Chihuahua, and she had contributed greatly along the way. Especially during the battle with Arlong, her marksmanship had played no small role.
"Mark, let me be the navigator!" Daisy looked at Mark seriously. "And the doctor too..."
Daisy as the navigator? Mark suddenly thought of all the sea charts in the room and smiled.
"Then you'll be our navigator!" Daisy was a genius too, wasn't she?
She had gone out to sea alone to search for Donquixote Doflamingo and investigate clues about her mother's family.
In one year, she had become familiar with many sea charts and learned navigation skills. She could lead them out to sea, and she also possessed excellent marksmanship and a Fruit power.
A genius was right beside him, so why look elsewhere?
"As for the doctor, that has to be you. Besides, Daisy, aren't all of us wearing multiple hats now?"
Mark's words made Daisy smile.
"I suppose that's true."
From the moment Daisy ate her Fruit, it had been destined that most ship doctors would be inferior to her. On top of that, she knew how to make sea charts and sail the seas. No one else was better suited for the jobs of ship doctor and navigator.
There was no need to mention Mark. He was the captain and the cook.
Chiu Chiu had even more jobs now: dishwasher, combatant, power generator, man-overboard rescuer, and so on...
The three of them already had the beginnings of a pirate crew.
Now that the pirate crew had been formed, they naturally needed to make a pirate flag.
"Boss, Boss, what do you think of the pirate flag I drew?" Chiu Chiu held a brush and scribbled across the paper, but no matter how it drew, it always ended up as a big bird...
Mark took the pirate flag Chiu Chiu had drawn, frowned, and said solemnly, "Chiu Chiu, it's not that your drawing doesn't look like a pirate flag. It's that it has absolutely nothing to do with a pirate flag!"
"Leave it to me!"
Taking the brush and paper from Chiu Chiu, Mark began to draw.
Mark's drawing might not have been beautiful, but after honing his carving skills for so long, it was at least better than Chiu Chiu's.
The pirate flag was very simple: a standard skull, a mass of pitch-black darkness like flames behind it, and a pair of wings on either side of the skull.
It looked like a simple skeletal angel.
It was not ornate, but it had an imposing air.
Mark's darkness, Daisy's beauty, and Chiu Chiu's wings.
The three of them were the foundation of this pirate crew, and this pirate flag was born with them as witnesses.
Daisy and Chiu Chiu had no objections.
"Then I'll hang up the pirate flag!"
"Okay!" Daisy and Chiu Chiu answered in unison.
They painted the pirate flag on the sail and the banner. From that moment onward, the Moss Pirates were officially established.
"Alright, boys... we're setting off!!!" Chiu Chiu flew onto the bow and swung its right wing forward.
Mark and Daisy looked at each other, then burst out laughing at the same time.
"Benn Beckman, do you think we'll run into Garp?"
"Is it really okay for the captain to suddenly say something so terrifying?"
"Hahaha, I was just asking..."
"Maybe... it's possible!"
"Then are we still going?"
"Of course. At worst, we'll fight Garp. Luffy must become a pirate."
The Red Force, the pirate ship of Red-Haired Shanks, one of the newly risen Four Emperors in the New World, had arrived in the East Blue.
Yet it did not cause much of a stir.
The East Blue was simply too weak. So far, only a handful of people had entered the Grand Line, and even fewer knew of Red-Haired Shanks.
On the deck of the Red Force, Red-Haired Shanks and Benn Beckman stood side by side.
The two joked with each other while the pirate crew behind them chimed in.
They had come to the East Blue for only one reason: to visit Luffy.
Of course... that did not rule out one of Shanks's personal reasons...
He also wanted to visit the Windmill Village tavern owner... Makino!
"Captain... after we see Luffy in the East Blue this time, are we heading back to the New World?"
Lucky Roux asked as he gnawed on a huge chicken leg.
Benn Beckman cut in, "You don't know what the captain is really thinking? He comes to the East Blue every so often. Do you not know why?"
Building Snake adjusted his sunglasses. "Isn't it to see Luffy?"
"Tch! Snake, that's all you can think of!"
Yasopp said, "It must be for Miss Makino!"
"You don't know this, but one day after the captain got drunk, he kept mumbling... Makino... Makino..."
Yasopp crossed his arms over his chest and put on a lovestruck expression.
"Who... who said that!"
A faint flush actually appeared on Shanks's face.
Even the usually taciturn Benn Beckman joined in, "The captain's blushing! Oh, the captain is actually blushing!!!"
"Hahahaha!!!"
"Miss Makino... hahaha!"
Laughter rang out across the Red Force.
What Benn Beckman and the others did not know was that Shanks felt more guilt than anything else. Makino had given so much for him and had always raised the child alone, yet as a pirate, all he longed for was the sea.
Yasopp had also abandoned his family and followed him out to sea after listening to him.
He felt even more indebted to Makino.
Today might be the last time he returned to the East Blue to visit her. After all, he was now one of the Four Emperors of the New World. If he frequently traveled to the East Blue, the Marines would surely set their sights on him.
Then Uta and Makino would both be in danger.
"Captain, I know... you've never been able to let go of Miss Makino, just as I've never been able to let go of my wife and my child!" Yasopp came to Shanks's side and said wistfully.
Shanks looked at Yasopp in a slight daze, then patted his shoulder without saying anything.
Two men with families had fallen in love with the sea.
"Captain... there's a pirate ship!" Lucky Roux stood at the bow and pointed in one direction.
At his words, Shanks and the others looked that way.
"That's a flag I've never seen before!" Yasopp said.
"A newly formed pirate crew?"
As that pirate ship drew closer and closer, Shanks saw the people on its deck, and his eyes widened slightly.
"That's... Mark, and little Daisy!"