4 Off to North Blue

A couple years later

Rizu POV

"Ji-chan." I called out to the older man who has trained me over the past three years that I have been stationed at this base.

The man who I call out to sniffles and wipes some tears that threaten to fall down from his eyes. "Rizu, be careful will ya. You became way stronger than you when you were back than, your now 11 years old! I'm so proud of you! Become stronger the next time we meet!" Garp says as he wipes his tears and pats my head affectionately.

I feel a bubbly feeling and smile underneath my mask. "Thanks Garp-jiji! I definitely will get stronger! Thank you for training me all this time!" I say and lift up my mask to show him my smile.

He grins at me and ruffles my hair. "It's no problem at all! I'm proud to call you my granddaughter and student! Gahhaha!" he laughs at the end while smiling proudly.

I smile yet again and feel really happy at that word "Granddaughter".

I hear men shouting from the marine ship. "Men come aboard!" and soon marines walk up and make their way to the ship.

I grab my bag that was laying on the ground next to me and hug Garp. "Thanks for everything! I'll become stronger and show him!" I say and start running towards the ship. As I run I turn around and wave at him and yell "I love you Ji-chan! Thank you for everything! Take care of your health! I'll miss you!" I say and board the ship.

As I was running towards the ship, I failed to notice that as soon as I mentioned him, his face became stern and unhappy. Garp wiped his tears and shook his head, ridding of those thoughts and watched as his dear student and granddaughter figure board the ship.

Garp looked at Rizu and thought 'Sakazuki, you don't know how much pain you put that girl through. She works hard day after day just to appease you and for you to acknowledged her. She has grown and changed since she got here.....Rizu was quiet and reserved, she didn't act her age, but now you could say she acts more her age and is a lot happier than she was before..'

Garp sighed and remembered Rizu's words "I love you Ji-chan! Thank you for everything! Take care of your health! I'll miss you!" and his heart clenches and cries outloud. 'My grandsons have never said anything like that before!' he thought.

As I board the ship, it starts pulling away I hear a loud cry and turn back to see Garp crying and wiping his tears away but has snot running down his nose. I see from the corner of my eyes to see men blink and sweatdrop at the vice admiral.

I smile slightly and chuckle lightly underneath my mask and see him wave slightly at me. I wave back to him and say "Thanks for everything Garp-jiji."

As the ship gets farther and farther away from that marine base, I stop looking back and face towards another direction. "Now let's see what awaits me at this new base." I say to myself and walk to an empty spot on deck.

Flashback

I see a notice on the marine poster board, the sign reads "Assignment in the North Blue, will be taking available men."

I read it over again thinking of this itching feeling in the back of my mind telling me something about this. Almost as of it's telling me to go and do this assignment. I shake my head and walk off to my regular training spot with Garp. 'No, I'm staying here with Garp a bit longer.' I tell myself.

Once I got to our regular training spot which is the ledge where I see the shore and beach of the base. I sit down and ponder.

'I've always move bases because of that man. Sooner or later I will have to move and switch bases. But this...is an assignment. But it will also leave me at a base in the North Blue.... Why do I have this feeling telling me to go.' I say to myself and clench onto my shirt.

Soon enough I'm brought out my thoughts with a booming voice from Garp. "Rizu! Let's start training! I got some new training material for you!" he yells to me as he makes his way closer. I turn my head and smile under my mask.

"Yes!" I reply with and stand up making my way down to the beach.

Flashback end and Time Skip

I sigh out. "In the end, I still managed to decide to come to the North Blue. I guess it was better that I chose where I was going and settle this feeling before I got sent away again." I mumble to myself. It's been a couple days since we've left.

Soon enough the climate seems to change and the temperature drops. I look around and see that the seas have gotten a bit rough and the sky is darker. A higher up marine comes out and announces "Men! We will be arriving at a base in the North Blue. There we will be changing our attire and head to Swallow Island!" he announces.

The men salute while I do a small salute back but most of the men on board ignore me and know me as the little girl who's in training and helps out. Yes, that's what some of them think and some of them that came from the same base knows that plus know the training I've received from Garp. But yet they are the ones that spread rumors of what they see and heard to curious marines aboard.

I sigh out once again and ignore their stares and gossip towards me, as I continue to sit and stare out into the ocean. And again my heart squeezes and I get this feeling telling me to hurry. I clench my fists. 'What is it that is bothering me?' I ask myself.

Soon enough we land on at a base here in the North Blue and dock. Unloading our cargo and loading more and supplies that we will need for the investigation and stuff for the mission. As we get off, other marines that are stationed here lead us inside and handed us new outfits which consisted of the regular look of a marine but a long coat. Since all they had were men size which were huge on a 14 year old girl, they had to dig in the back in their supplies to find a kid sweater.

Which to me was not very amusing, since I could hear the snickering and laughing of the men around me along with their comments of "Why is a little girl like her here?" "Hahaha! Is she someones servant?" "Or is she expecting to play 'marine'?"

I clenched my fists and ignored them while I waited for that soldier to come back with a coat. Soon enough he came walking down holding a small black coat with some fur on the hood. I nodded and said a small "Thank you." to the man.

For he just nodded and pat my head. I looked up at him questionably, I never had anybody pat my head like that unless it was Garp. Wasn't he too going to say something about me? I pondered to myself and shook off those thoughts while I put on my new coat.

The higher up marine escorted us to our rooms that we would be staying at the moment. Some had their own rooms and some had to share, in my case I would say that I'm lucky and got a room for myself. One because I was a girl and there was only one other woman here at this base who is a cook. She had her own room.

Once I got to my room I put my bag down and layed on my bed for a little bit until the supplies and the ship was ready.

About 30 minutes later I heard a soldier call out to us that the ship was ready and men soon flowed out of their rooms and down the hall. Before I left my room, I opened my bag and grabbed my contactable spear that was gifted to me from Garp. At glance it looked like a dagger but when opened it was a spear. But only smaller than normal ones since I was still small. I attached it to a clip on my belt from the inside of my coat.

I walked towards the door and stopped. An image of a young boy around my age wearing a fluffy spotted hat and an older man wearing makeup with a fluffy black coat appeared. It showed the both of them talking and the man shoving a fruit down the boys throat forcing him to eat it. The fruit had weird swirls and designs. The image changed to seeing the boy crying and the man injured, the imaged blurred to seeing that same man laying in the snow looking content accepting his fate....His death. I blink my eyes.

'What was that? Who were they? Never mind but what's with this feeling again! ' I turned back and grabbed some bandages from my bag. I huffed and ruffled my hair a bit. 'I really don't understand this.' I say to myself as I leave the room and make my way down to the boat.

Once the ship was done loading on the supplies, the men to go on this mission boarded the ship. A man stopped me from boarding and looked at me. "Girl, this is no place for you. Stay here, though I have no idea why they would send you here in the first place." he told me while looking me up and down. I sigh and hear men chuckling and looking snide at my situation.

I looked up at the man "Sir. I came here form the base in the East Blue. At that base, Vice Admiral Garp, gave me permission to come on this mission and to train here at this base. He has assigned me with the task of observing and helping around on this mission. I have for a while been moving to different bases since I was younger. If you have any questions ask the higher ups." I say to him without any emotion and dig out a form that shows Garp's signature of his okay for me to go and participate. Also stating that I could fight and that I'm a student of his.

I smile underneath this mask. 'Yay for Garp! Good thing I had thought of this!' I pat myself on the back mentally. The man took the paper from my hands and read it. As he did his eyes grew wider seeing that I was not lying. He passed the paper back to me and I put it back.

The soldier then moved aside "I see....You really are a student of Vice Admiral Garp. I shall discuss with the higher ups here at a different time, since we are needed at that island." he says and I move around him and make my way up onto the ship.

As this happened I heard men gasp like women and stare at me. 'Wow what men they are.' I think to myself sarcastically. I made my way on and sat where I sat before and looked out onto the sea waiting to depart to Minion Island.