Setting Sail

"All right, the Marines have caught up!" Nami shouted. "We have to leave now!"

"They're in range! Prepare to fire!" The cannons aboard the Marine warship swung toward the Thousand Sunny. "Fire!"

"What a bunch of pests! You think you can hit me that easily?" Edward snapped. "Watch me drift past those cannonballs!"

Thump! Li Ziming slammed a fist into Edward's head. "No need to get violent. Besides, we don't have to do anything this time..."

Before Li Ziming could finish, a beautiful woman's voice caught the attention of pirates and Marines alike. "Slave Arrow!" Pink arrows tipped with red hearts flew toward the cannonballs, turning every one they struck to stone.

"Who did that?" a Marine demanded angrily. Then he spotted the Kuja Pirates' emblem on the other ship's flag. "What are the Kuja Pirates doing here? Are they trying to interfere with our duties?"

"Who, you ask?" The woman from the Kuja Pirates sounded as though she held the Marines in utter contempt. "Who dares park a warship... in my path?"

"That's the Kuja emblem..." Robin recognized the newcomers.

"The Kuja?" Nami looked baffled.

"Yes. One of the Shichibukai leads them," Li Ziming explained. "They're said to be a pirate crew made up entirely of women. Their leader is also the ruler of Amazon Lily, known as the Pirate Empress."

"An island of women!" Sanji seized on the most important part of Li Ziming's explanation. "You mean they're all girls? That's... paradise!" Just imagining it nearly gave him a nosebleed.

"Yes, and the Pirate Empress is called the most beautiful woman on the seas..." Li Ziming went on, as though deliberately tempting him.

"The most beautiful woman..." Sanji's face turned lovestruck. "I have to get aboard that ship!"

"You'd better give up. The Pirate Empress won't attack our