Chapter 32.5 : Thresh

As soon as Diana handed her a fried bird, it seemed as though Emily's CPU stopped frying itself, and returned to normal.

"You know... that isn't such a bad idea Captain..." mumbled Emily as she stared at her new captain, her eyes becoming brighter and brighter every moment.

Hearing that, Diana couldn't help but turn her attention away from her food and onto her Vice-Captain, who now sported a bloodthirsty smile on her face.

"So how's the strength of the nearby marines?"

"Other than the Captain that is in charge of the base, the rest are completely useless cannon-fodder, if they were like this thirty years ago they would have long since been killed by a rampaging pirate, or so says Uncle Thresh."

Hearing that, Diana faintly smiled, but even so, a question still appeared in her mind.

"Uncle Thresh?"

"It's nothing, that's just what I call him."

But even though Emily did not say anything else, Diana realized what the rough situation was.

'An orphan...' thought Diana as she looked at Emily, her gaze on the girl becoming just a bit gentler.

"Alright, that's enough of a break, let's go back to the ship, I'm very interested in meeting the crew," said Diana as she got up, causing Emily to do the same.

...

As she jumped onto the deck of Thunder, Diana couldn't help but begin inspecting her new ship as she followed Emily.

Although Diana wasn't a shipwright in the slightest, with her improved senses, she still managed to detect something very obvious in the ship.

Its front of half was clearly much newer than its back half, it was as though this ship had been broken in half.

"Has this ship ever crashed?"

"Well personally I don't know, but since this was Uncle Thresh's ship from back in the day, then probably yes," said Emily as she suddenly opened the door to a cabin, revealing the scene inside.

Right now, inside the cabin stood a boy, who looked 14 to 15, panting whilst holding a sword in his hands.

On the opposite side of the boy stood an old man, who Diana presumed was 'Uncle Thresh'.

Unlike the boy, Thresh did not have an actual sword at the moment, instead, he was currently holding a wooden training sword in his left hand.

As for his right hand? Which Diana could see from his posture had been his dominant hand in the past?

It was completely gone, up all the way to the shoulder, presumably lost in battle, as Diana doubted a pirate would have his dominant hand amputated.

'He noticed...'

Although Emily had silently opened the door, and the two were behind the old man, as soon as they silently walked in, Diana clearly noticed that the old man slightly twitched.

Even so, this still did not give the young man any sort of advantage, as just a few moments later, a wooden sword stood still against his neck, causing him to lower his own sword.

"I really can't beat you Thresh, at least not just yet, let's go again," said Oro as he stared at the disabled old man in front of him, causing the latter to shake his head.

"That'd be fine, but wouldn't it be better if we greeted the new member of the crew?" asked Thresh as he turned towards Emily and Diana, who had been watching them, causing Oro's eyes to follow along.

As soon as he stared at the person standing next to the captain, Oro slightly shrunk back his neck.

Seeing this, both Emily and Diana jumped down to the same level as the two.

"Emily, so who's this new crew member of ours, is this the new doctor we've been waiting for?" asked Oro as he broke through his fear and looked at Diana, causing Emily to shake her head.

"This is the new captain of the crew."

As soon as Emily said that, Oro fell to the ground onto his butt, trembling, whilst Thresh's formerly relaxed face turned serious.

"Emily, are you really serious about this?" asked the disabled old man as he stared at his adopted daughter, causing the latter to simply nod and smile.

But as soon as he saw that nod, Thresh turned his eyes onto Diana herself, staring right into her own eyes for a few moments.

"So Captain..."

"Diana"

"Captain Diana, what's the plan?" asked Thresh as he continued simply staring right into Diana's eyes, seemingly searching for something.

"We need some money, so we're going to be paying the Marines a visit," said Diana as she looked at the old man with a smile on her face.

Upon seeing Diana's answer, as well as the look in her eyes, Thresh suddenly smiled as well, remembering some old memories from over 3 decades ago as she stared at the new captain.

Although those memories were quite painful, in the end, time had dulled the pain, furthermore, noticing such a similarity was quite a good thing.

"That's good, these marines are getting more and more arrogant these days, putting them back in their place should make things a bit better!" said Thresh before suddenly beginning to laugh.

Merely a few moments later, Diana also began laughing loudly, causing question marks to appear over the heads of the other two, who could simply not understand why the two had begun laughing.

'Are these two old drinking buddies??'

...

As she looked at the fridge in front of her, which in her opinion, left much to be desired in regard to what filled it, Diana couldn't help but feel a bit peckish.

"We need to rob some better food from the marines when we get there..." mumbled Diana, causing a vein to appear on the forehead of Tsurumi, the chef of the crew, who was sitting nearby.

"As long as you can convince that stingy old man to get me some better ingredients the food will get better, do you expect me to make something out of nothing?" asked Tsurumi as she pointed at Thresh, who was sitting next to Oro and Daniel, eating just some white bread.

Hearing that, Diana couldn't help but shake her head.

Although she wasn't extremely familiar with the crew just yet, as she stared at the old man who was eating plain bread, she felt as though getting him to spend more berries on food would be quite troublesome.