For twenty years, I lived in the shadow of a world that wanted me dead. From the age of eight, I learned to survive by being useful to dangerous people, by making myself indispensable while remaining invisible. Trust was a luxury I could not afford. Every alliance was temporary, every sanctuary borrowed.

When I first joined the Straw Hat crew, I expected it to be another arrangement of convenience. I would use them; they would use me. When the relationship became inconvenient, we would part ways — or worse. That was how the world worked. That was all I had ever known.

I was wrong. At Enies Lobby, when the World Government came for me, when I told my crewmates to leave me behind because I believed my existence was a burden — they burned the flag of the world's most powerful institution and declared war on the entire system. Not for treasure, not for glory, but because I was their friend.

Monkey D. Luffy stood on the rooftop of the courthouse and shouted for me to say that I wanted to live. And I did. For the first time in twenty years, I said it aloud. I want to live. I want to go to sea with you.

That moment did not erase the pain of Ohara or the loneliness of those wandering years. But it gave me something I had never had: a home that moves with me, carried on a ship with people who would rather fight the world than leave a friend behind.