A/N: This story is my entry for One Piece Big Bang 2015-2016.
-I would like to thank the artist working with me, Unirizz for beautiful art and lots of fun with tossing ideas around. Iceburg definitely looked good in white :)
-A big thank you to the organizators of this event and other participators. It's been a lot of fun!
-Also, a big thank you to an239 for beating this fic.
Trigger warnings: implied character death; implied suicide; grieving and some swearing
Chapter 1
'Come visit Water 7 before you leave for New World.'
The message was crumpled, worn out by long journey and hazardous delivery. Greasy fingerprints marred the paper. It looked like something torn out of the factory manual at moment's notice - and such it probably was.
Leaning over the table, Nami frowned, her eyes tracing uneven letters smudged over the cracks and dirt. She could feel Sanji's eyes flicking to her from his post by the counter. The two of them were alone in Sunny's kitchen, enjoying a peace and quiet of early morning hours.
The peace which was interrupted by mail. It wasn't the message itself that had Nami worried, though. She took the scrap of paper and checked the other side, looking for any further information.
"Paulie?" she dropped the message back onto the table, looking away through the window into the sea beyond. Her fingers tapped on the signature absentmindedly.
"That's what got me thinking as well." Sanji turned back to the pots on the cooker. "It came this morning. The envelope was addressed to all of us. As a crew." Sanji prodded at the steaming vegetables on the pan. A refreshing scent of coffee was wafting from
the cups on the table.
Sanji's workplace wasn't a dining hall, but it was still open to visitors.
"You think something happened to Iceburg?" Nami frowned. "It's not like Paulie to go out of his way and try to contact us like that."
The thought must have appeared to him as well, still Sanji took his time to consider the question.
"There is no way newspapers would be quiet about it... had something really happened," he said.
Nami looked around in search of the most recent issue. It was already folded away in a stand on the far side of the counter. She reached for it nevertheless, glancing at rubrics below. The echoes of their comeback have died out long ago - instead, she spotted a small adnotation near the end about recent adventure on Fishmen Island.
She peered closer, momentarily distracted.
'Internal struggles', huh.
"The guys need to see that," she said, returning to the problem at hand. She folded the newspaper and reached out for her coffee. "All of them."
"Yeah." Sanji took the pan from the cooker, putting its' contents into a bigger bowl to his side. He reached for the cuttlery.
Nami looked at him closely as the clues started to add up, forming the answer to his uncharacteristically quiet demanour this morning.
"Sanji... You don't want to go back there, do you?" In this clean, sweet-smelling kitchen, the halt in Sanji's work was enough of the answer.
"Water 7 wasn't exactly a happy place for us."
It wasn't.
oOo
They saw the message and argued.
It could be a trap, said Usopp, snatching the note and inspecting it closely in search of a hidden marks of forgery or secret messages. They just got back together after a two long years of separation. It stands to reason for Marines to try lure them back before they leave into New World.
Marines are too much of a justice braggers to try such a trick, said Zoro. It's not their style. That was when Sanji said that barbarians like Zoro should be the last to give his opinion on any style, much less of other's.
Ensuing fight quickly escalated and moved outside to the upper deck so that further discussion oscilated in smaller company, hovering between risk assessment of bounty hunter at work and the need to put their worries to rest.
It stretched until their captain spoke out.
(After a bit of prodding, admittedly.)
oOo
"We are going back." Luffy ignored protests on Usopp's part. "If it turns out to be bounty hunters trap, we kick their butts."
oOo
Wind hummed in the sails, swinging loose ropes and rustling twigs of her orange trees. Nami looked up with a sigh at the bright sky above, searching for clouds.
She glanced back down at the log pose on her wrist.
"The sea is calm," she said to noone in particular. She frowned. The additional log pose hand, blessfully forgotten by Luffy, was still moving erratically, jumping back and forth in it's glass confinement.
With some luck and sufficient distraction, Nami would be able to set Sunny a new course that wouldn't involve potentially doombringing stops.
"A lovely day, isn't it?" She smiled as a sight of a big, black afro casted a shadow over her maps. Brook was unusually quiet this morning, letting the destination discussion happen without much of his contribution.
"We could use a bit more of wind, actually." Emergency propel systems Sunny had could be needed when passing the Florian Triangle. They needed to use more conventional iads to bring them there in the meantime. "We will be passing through the Triangle... You think we will need Coup de Bust?"
"This place has many dangers." For a jovial companion like Brook, the skeleton's face was problematically expressioneless. Two years probably have felt like an hour compared to the time he spent drifting back there.
"I know it feels like turning back for you," said Nami. She couldn't place the sense of wrongness about the situation at first, but now decided to give it a try. "Even if we pass the place we met you first. Know that you're one of us and we value your say."
"I decided to join you after long years of solitude." Skeleton fingers scraped at bone-white chin. "Experience tells me no matter how long is the road I choose, a happy company makes it of equal lenght... I believe we are right to turn."
Nami smiled at warm words. Still...
"My Mother used to travel a lot," she looked at the sea before her. "She told me that sailors, especially the marines were supersticious lot." Maybe bringing this up to Brook wasn't a good idea, but who could know more about curses than him? "There was that one superstition saying that it's a bad luck to turn back from your course so sudden."
Above them, the wind kept tugging at sails and ropes.
The log pose at her wrist kept struggling, pointing backwards.
oOo
Short notice orders were a common part of soldier's life. Therefore, the announcement caught hardly anyone off-guard. No matter how long stationed soldiers were or how strategicaly important their base was, every marine was living with underlying readiness to move. Now, prodding at his plate and listening to the organised shuffle of feet on the corridor, Vice-admiral Jonathan glanced at the map sprawled across the rest of his table, otherwise occupied by steaming soup plate. A rich mushroom scent was conquering slowly the room. A small, round window on his left was open but still offered little relief of the atmosphere. The two days journey to Water 7 were coming to a close.
Simple as the order was, the feeling of impending complications was relentless. Jonathan looked up in search of his coffee. He was sure he had it brought here.
Maybe he worried too much, just like his wife said before he left. Maybe he really should treat this mission as a holiday. 'You deserve a break from this stronghold,' she said. 'As do your people.'
"Sir?" The attendand's voice shook Jonathan out of his thoughts. He looked up at freckled, round face of the new recruit. He had yet to build the muscles of regular soldiers. Jonathan tried to remember the application forms he must have signed for trainee's enrollment. None memory came.
Perhaps he needed a break.
"Is something a matter?" he asked. The attendant looked troubled. Jonathan knew that a lot of recruits felt lost when exposed to G8's code of conduct for a first time.
Meal regulation was only the beginning.
Recruit seemed battling his own thoughts.
"Just ask," Jonathan got back to his plate. No carrot this time. A small relief like a pebble of happiness in a quiet, mushroom-lined day.
"I heard the older soldiers talking, sir," attendant stood attention, seemingly trying to compensate for speaking what other officers could deem as out of turn. "This is our first outside mission in years, sir. Outside the stronghold that is, sir. Is something wrong at Water 7?"
Gossip was inseparable part of marine's life, too. Jonathan looked at the recruit.
"Delegation is important part of marine's duty. This mission will be a part of a training preparing you to shoulder this duty."
"So Water 7 is not in danger, sir?" A slightly hopeful note prodded memory. Jonathan remembered something about the latest recruits coming from G8's region.
"It's for us to assess." Either way, Water 7 was going to be interesting place to visit. The most important contractor of Navy and, apparently, home of one of the Straw Hats. Jonathan glanced at even row of wanted posters lining up the nearby wall. He was aware of gossips caused by assembling this small gallery in his office, yet he didn't mind it. Keep your enemies closer and all.
Blue hair and outragous chin stood out from the gallery of misfits. Jonathan found himself almost wishing to meet the newest pirate. Straw Hat's unappreciated quality the posters didn't mention was loyalty.
Water 7 was full of loyal people.
