A few kilometers away from the cave, at a small temporary camp—
Hina and her two female teammates sat around a campfire, staring expressionlessly at a pitch-black roasted seabird by the flames.
With no seasonings and poor control of the fire, the meat was dry and stringy, with a stubborn fishy stench that wouldn't go away.
Still, on this deserted island, it was the easiest source of protein they had.
Just then, a breeze swept by—carrying with it a rich, overwhelming aroma of roasted meat.
"Hm?" The short-haired woman's chewing stopped. She sniffed hard at the air, then turned to Hina in confusion. "Hina, are you hiding some secret seasoning or something? Why does it suddenly smell this good?"
The other woman also froze, her face going slack with bliss. "Yeah… what is that smell? Just breathing it in is making my mouth water."
Hina herself had already stopped eating.
Her usually lazy and calm eyes were now opened slightly wider than usual.
She tilted her head up, flaring her nostrils just a little, following that almost magical aroma toward a certain direction in the jungle.
The smell was a powerful blend of pure meat fragrance and the charred scent of roasting fat, like an invisible hand grabbing their taste buds and refusing to let go.
All three women looked down, in perfect sync, at the charred, barely-edible "lump of coal" by their fire.
Silence.
The next second, all three of them tossed their "food" into the fire at the exact same time.
"I can't take this anymore!" The short-haired woman shot to her feet, her face full of hunger and frustration. "I have to see who that is—who on this godforsaken rock can make food that smells like that!"
"Hina thinks it's very necessary… to scout the situation," Hina said calmly as she rose, stamping out the campfire, a spark of unfamiliar curiosity in her eyes.
The three of them, like predators drawn by scent, followed the trail of aroma straight into the dark jungle.
They crossed streams, climbed over ravines, and finally were blocked by the roar of a waterfall.
The source of that haunting smell seemed to be just beyond the curtain of water.
The three exchanged a look, then carefully made their way to a high ledge beside the waterfall. They pushed aside the wet brush and looked down—
And saw something that shattered their understanding of reality.
Behind the enormous sheet of falling water, in a dry, well-lit cave, a warm campfire burned.
Around it, three figures sat together. Two of them were devouring huge, golden, glistening slabs of meat like starving beasts.
The third was lounging on a camp cot from who-knows-where, calmly cutting his meat with knife and fork—and he even had a drink at his side.
Hina recognized them at a glance.
Smoker, Rosinante, and that recruit who'd only scored 101 Doriki in the test—Rain.
After a moment of weighing the situation, Hina led her teammates around to the front, stepped through the roaring water curtain, and appeared at the edge of the firelight.
"Who's there?!"
Smoker and Rosinante jumped like they'd been shocked, springing to their feet.
Rosinante fumbled around trying to grab a weapon and nearly tripped over his own feet.
Smoker stepped in front of the fire, still chewing, and mumbled into a combat stance, eyes suddenly sharp and hostile.
Rain didn't even look up.
His Observation Haki had already told him everything.
The moment he sensed them approaching, he just kept cutting his meat at an unhurried pace, as if he'd expected them all along.
Just as the tension was about to snap, Smoker recognized the faces, and his stiff fighting posture deflated, replaced by a mix of irritation and a headache.
"Tch. It's you, Hina." He grumbled through a mouthful of meat, but didn't fully lower his guard.
"Relax. Hina has no hostile intent."
Hina raised one hand slightly to show they weren't enemies.
Her lazy eyes swept past the wary Smoker, then the clumsy Rosinante, and finally settled on the ridiculously relaxed figure by the camp cot.
"Hina just followed a smell that shouldn't exist on this island. No intention of stealing your dinner."
She paused, the corner of her mouth curling into a playful smile as she finally voiced what she was really thinking.
"But Hina is surprised. It seems some people's survival training is going much better than back in Marineford."
"What are you staring at?!" Smoker finally swallowed his mouthful, grabbed a still-dripping hunk of rib like it was a club, and barked, "This is our meat!"
Rain didn't even glance at him. He just lifted a hand slightly in a "calm down" gesture.
That simple motion was enough to choke Smoker's rising temper right back down.
Hina's gaze didn't linger on Smoker. It drifted past the tent, cookware, and sleeping bags, then stopped on the plain-looking little backpack at Rain's side.
"We came here following the scent of good food. But now, what Hina is more curious about," she said, turning her eyes back to Rain, "is how you managed to move an entire logistics warehouse onto this island."
Rain repeated his usual trick, pointing at the backpack with an innocent look, and offered an explanation that sounded like an insult to common sense:
"I'm just… good at packing."
The kind of answer you'd give a toddler made Hina's brows twitch almost imperceptibly. Behind her, her teammates wore identical "you're kidding me" expressions.
Grrrrrrrrrr—
A loud, echoing stomach growl rolled through the cave, painfully obvious in the silence.
The air turned awkward in an instant.
The two women behind Hina flushed bright red, like they wanted to vanish into the floor on the spot.
Their eyes, however, refused to move away from the sizzling meat over the fire, glued to it as they swallowed repeatedly.
Rain picked up his Good-Grade blade. Under Smoker and Rosinante's panicked "It's ours, it's ours" stares, he sliced off a big, perfectly grilled rib dripping with fragrant fat.
The crisp crackle of the knife slipping through the crunchy outer layer, followed by the hiss of juices hitting the fire, might as well have been the sweetest music in the world right then.
He laid the slab of meat onto a makeshift "plate" fashioned from a big leaf—but didn't hand it over. He simply held it, watching Hina calmly.
"Want some? If you do, make a deal with me."
Hina's reaction, however, was completely outside Rain's expectations.
Instead of stepping forward, she actually took half a step back. A strange look flickered in her usually lazy eyes, and the faintest blush colored her cheeks.
"Hina should remind you," she said, folding her arms and speaking in an oddly subtle tone, "even if your cooking is amazing—and you do happen to be… pretty handsome, don't think you can trade a mere piece of meat for Hina's…"