Medaka

For her age she is of ordinary size, with red hair and green eyes. Day to day she wears a striped shirt under a pink overall dress. During her struggle against the Ganzack Pirates she encases herself in plate armor covering most of her head and torso, so thoroughly that the Straw Hats could not tell who she was once she stepped out of it.

Hardy and headstrong, she prizes her family and her island deeply enough to stand alone against grown men and fling herself at lethal weapons. All the same, she knows how limited she is as a fighter and will happily lure fresh allies such as Luffy and Zoro into doing the fighting with her. The conquest of her home left her hating pirates of every stripe, but Luffy's courage prompted a change of heart, and she came to respect the Straw Hats for setting her island free. Neither powerful nor practiced in battle, she makes up for it with agility, outrunning and outmaneuvering grown men even in her armor.

The armor she dons can deflect flintlock shots, although Ganzack's blades cut through it, and it is large enough that she can pull her entire head down into the breastplate so the hollow helmet stands as a decoy. A naginata rounds out her gear, though she handles it with little real talent. Once, Medaka had a calm life beside her father and the rest of the islanders, until the Ganzack Pirates took the place over and drove every able-bodied man, Herring included, into a bleak armory while their relatives were held hostage. For weeks she kept up a rickety resistance in hopes of rescuing her father.

Fortune shifted when three famished castaways drifted ashore, the Straw Hats Luffy, Zoro, and Nami. Unaware they were pirates, Medaka warmed to Luffy after he saved her from two of Ganzack's men, brought him back together with Zoro, and signed both on by dangling the promise of food. The three slipped into Ganzack's base and found her father, only to be seized along with a Nami who appeared to have turned traitor. Bound before Ganzack, Medaka endured until Luffy called himself a pirate too, a declaration that devastated her; even after Nami's treachery turned out to be a trick, she split off, certain the crew was no better than her foe. On her own, she discovered her father under a leveled pistol and dove into the bullet's path, her armor halting it. With the Straw Hats coming back to guard her people, her trust returned, and at a pivotal moment she put herself between Ganzack's blades and Luffy. The sight of her sliced helmet convinced Luffy she had been killed, and he hammered Ganzack down onto the deck of his own vessel. Medaka then showed herself unharmed, having tucked into the breastplate in time, helped Luffy back to the island, and at the crew's farewell playfully gave him a life preserver along with encouragement to grow into a great pirate.