Rika

Rika is a small girl with dark eyes and dark hair tied into pigtails. At her first meeting with the Straw Hat Pirates she had on a striped one-piece dress topped with what looked like a drawstring hood.

Two years on she has grown taller and let her hair lengthen, though she keeps the pigtails. Her Marine waitress getup is an apron stitched with a Marine emblem, worn with a cook's bandana and plain black shoes.

For someone so young, Rika is unusually kind and courageous, willing to put her own safety on the line for anyone who has helped her, such as Zoro, and ready even to offer friendship to former foes like Helmeppo. That said, frustration can quickly tip her into tears or fits of temper. A budding cook, she has learned to make a mild, sweet curry that the Marines of the 153rd adore.

Rika and her mother made their home in Shells Town while Captain Morgan held power, forever subject to the cruelty of the captain and his son Helmeppo. On a certain day, Helmeppo turned his pet wolf loose to menace Rika, and the wandering bounty hunter Roronoa Zoro cut the beast down to save her. In retaliation, Helmeppo had Zoro arrested and shut away at the 153rd Branch with no food at all.

Nine days into that imprisonment, Rika smuggled homemade onigiri to him despite Morgan's harsh punishments for aiding prisoners. Zoro turned her away, and Helmeppo soon caught her, helping himself to the rice balls only to find them badly made, since the inexperienced girl had used sugar in place of salt. Enraged, he spat them out, stamped on them, and ordered a subordinate to fling her off the grounds. Monkey D. Luffy and Koby happened to see the whole thing and caught her before she could be hurt, befriended her, fed the ruined onigiri to Zoro, and heard from her about the Morgan household's tyranny. When Helmeppo announced Zoro's coming execution and Luffy struck him, Rika cheered the pirate on until her alarmed mother whisked her away.

Word of her trespass reached Morgan, who ordered the girl killed, a decree that horrified even Helmeppo, only for Luffy, Koby, and a newly freed Zoro to topple the tyrant first. Rika, her mother, and indeed the whole of Shells Town then hailed the three as heroes and laid out a feast for them. After the timeskip she had matured into a trainee waitress at the town's Marine base, better at cooking, well liked by the Marines, and keeping a wanted poster of Luffy on display at her workplace.