Chapter 1

A Disturbing Letter

"NAMI!" the boy in the straw hat screamed at the top of his lungs as he stood on the pile of rubble that once was Arlong Park. "YOU ARE MY NAKAMA!"

The memory echoed in her mind as she stared down at the unfinished map she had been working on for the past week. Nami sighed quietly to herself so as not to let any of her other crewmates overhear.

It had been years since she joined the Straw Hat Pirates. After what they did to save her and her village, she was only too happy to become their navigator. Over the time spent at sea, they had sailed all over the world, from East Blue to West, North to South, and even went in the Grand Line and came out again with the world's greatest treasure: One Piece. In fact, it wasn't a treasure made of gold, silver, or precious gems. It was Gold Roger's personal captain's hat that he had somehow combined his own spirit with. Gold Roger's spirit only spoke to the first person to touch it who ended up being none other than Monkey D. Luffy. He was now the rightful heir to the title of King of the Pirates. The One Piece might not have been something that was worth money, but besides that, Gold Roger had left a mountain of gold and other precious metals and gems along with it on the distant island of Raftel. The Straw Hat Pirates were the richest men and women in the world.

Now that they were done with that, Luffy's next goal was to find his mentor, Red Shanks. Word on the wind was that he had disappeared after a fierce battle with the Sea King and everyone thought him to be dead, but Luffy, being Luffy, refused to believe it. Now that he had the One Piece, and a mountain of treasure, he was absolutely sure that he would find Red Shanks somewhere out on the vast ocean.

In fact, everyone in the crew had achieved their dreams. Zoro defeated the man who was considered to be the greatest swordsman in the world, Dracule "Hawk Eyes" Mihawk, who had a one point been a mentor to the green haired swordsman. Sanji found the All Blue, where the East, West, North and South Blues met, and had the cooking extravaganza of his life. Usopp had had countless adventures that he could tell to anyone who would listen and he had found his courage to stand up to any challenges that would come his way. Chopper had found peace within himself, being a talking reindeer and all, and he had also become a world famous doctor following in his mentor, Dr. Hiruluk's footsteps. Robin found many of the answers that she had been looking for about the mysterious past of the One Piece in the Rio Poneglyph and upon the Straw Hat Pirates' arrival to the Island of Raftel, she was able to uncover the true mystery surrounding the poneglyphs and the history of the Grand Line. Franky, having already fulfilled his dream of creating a prized pirate ship that could withstand any trial, was content to stay on the Thousand Sunny as a Straw Hat Pirate and tend to his beloved treasure of a ship. Brook's goal was fulfilled when the Straw Hats reunited with Laboon, the monstrous whale of the Grand Line. Brook was finally able to fulfill his promise to his dead comrades and played their final song they had sung together for the whale on the tone dial that Brook had kept safe.

Everyone's dreams had been fulfilled. Everyone's except Nami's. Her dream would require much more time. A lifetime, to be exact. She wanted to draw a map of the entire world. As much as she had traveled with the Straw Hat Pirates, they had not even come close to exploring all of the vast oceans that covered the earth.

Nami stretched her hands in the air and looked over at the shelves upon shelves of books, navigation tools, and her own maps. So far, she had diligently found the time to draw maps of everywhere the crew had been despite her crewmates' love of getting into trouble and being obnoxiously loud literally ALL the time. Luckily, Robin understood Nami's need for privacy and quiet so that she could concentrate on her maps, and Nami was thankful that Robin often stepped in to fill the "mother" position on the boat and calmed the boys down when things got out of hand.

Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, Robin, Franky, and Brook…all of them were really her nakama. Perhaps to other people that didn't mean as much as it did to her given her past. For the first 18 years of her life, she had no nakama. The only people who gave a rat's ass about her were her dead foster mother, Bellemere and her foster sister, Nojiko. She had swallowed her anger, hatred, and pride after Bellemere's murder and joined the crew of the very pirate who killed her. Arlong. For eight long years, Nami slowly but steadily stole the money she needed from other pirates to pay Arlong the 100 million berries to buy her village back. Not only until her last visit there did she realize that Nojiko wasn't the only one who knew, but Gen, the village leader, and the rest of the villagers knew as well. Then Luffy and the others had come to her rescue even when she had stolen the Going Merry, along with all the rest of their money, and abandoned them.

A knock at the door snapped Nami back to reality causing her to drop her pen on the desk.

"Nami?" It was Robin.

"The door's open. Come on in," Nami called without getting up.

"Nami," Robin said again after shutting the door behind her.

Nami smiled when she heard the commotion outside caused by the male members of their crew.

"Mail's come in."

"Oh really?" Nami said. "First time in weeks!"

Robin nodded. "One's for you."

"Me?"

The dark haired beauty tossed an envelope over to the surprised red head. Robin nodded. "From your village, I believe."

Nami immediately opened the letter. Mail was a rarity, especially when out at sea. Only every few months would Nami receive a letter from her old village, but this time the letter was different. A small gasp escaped her lips as she quickly put a hand over her mouth.

"Nami?" Robin looked over from her side of the room, pausing as she placed the newspapers and other mail on her desk. "Is everything all right?"

Nami's eyes were wide with shock and she was trembling. She couldn't respond.

Robin swiftly walked over to Nami and took the letter from her hands. After quickly scanning it, she realized why the navigator was so shaken up. "Nojiko," she said softly.

Nami's trembling turned into outright shaking as she nodded her head still unable to speak.

Robin had never met Nami's older foster sister, Nojiko, but Nami had told her all about her and the rest of her village. Nojiko was all the family Nami had left in this world and according to the letter she had gone missing from the village. Since mail was hard to deliver across the oceans, the letter was about a month old.

"Nami," Robin said and put a hand on her shoulder attempting to comfort her. "This letter's a month old. Maybe they've found her by now."

No response.

Robin knew it was unlikely. The only reason that this letter was sent out to Nami in the first place was because Nojiko had already been missing for some time before it was even sent. The villagers wouldn't have wanted to worry Nami unless they were unable to find her for at least a good number of days.

"R-Robin…" a small, weak voice managed to sound from the trembling girl. "She's my only family. I…I have to go back."

Robin looked down at her close friend. She knew that Nami would have to go back, no matter how much the rest of the crew would hate losing her. Unless… "We're going with you, Nami."

"What?" Nami said in surprise and looked up at Robin. "No! We're so close to finding Shanks. The intel we have now won't be the same later and if we all go back to the East Blue now, Luffy might never get this chance again!"

Robin smiled and knelt down so that she could look Nami in the eye. "It's ok. I'm sure Luffy wouldn't mind a detour. Besides," she lifted Nami's chin and wiped a tear away. "What kind of sister would I be to you if I wouldn't help you find your other sister?"

Nami's tears streamed freely down her face now. "Robin!" she cried and threw her arms around her.

"Sh, it's ok, Nami."

"Oi! Nami!" Luffy practically bust down the door as he barreled into the girls' room. A huge smile was on his face. "You gotta check this out! Usopp and I…" he trailed off. "Nami?" he asked confusedly.

Robin shot Luffy a disapproving look. "Read this," she said shortly and handed Luffy the letter.

"Hm?" Luffy's wide, usually blank eyes filled with concern after a quick glance over the letter. "Nami…"

"I'm afraid we're going to have to make a detour," Robin stated simply.

Luffy nodded in agreement.

"No!" Nami suddenly burst and stood up shocking the other two in the room. "I mean…I'll just take one of the small boats and go on my own."

"What? No way!" Luffy said in his usual overdramatic way waving his arms above his head.

"Nami."

"No, I…I don't want to run the Thousand Sunny off course now. We finally have the One Piece and we're so close to finding Shanks! If we go back to Cocoyashi now then we may never have another chance like this again!" she repeated.

Robin stared at her bunkmate with her dark, satin eyes. Her expression was hard to figure out as she crossed her arms. She then looked over at her captain awaiting his response. As much as she wanted to help Nami, having the whole ship abandon their current mission wasn't exactly her decision to make.

"I'll be fine," Nami insisted to Luffy when neither Robin nor Luffy said a word. "I am a navigator. It's not like I'll get lost. A-and you guys'll have Robin and Franky so you can keep going to find Shanks!"

"Nami…"

"Nami," Luffy interrupted. He was completely serious now which was rare considering he was usually the most illogical, fun-loving, immature 24 year old you'd ever meet.

The two girls immediately gave their full attention to the newly crowned Pirate King.

His serious expression turned into a smile. "I want all of us to go back to Cocoyashi together."

Nami opened her mouth to protest but was cut off by her captain.

"Shanks isn't dead and he's not going to be dead for a long time. Besides, it's our fate to see each other again, so I'm not too worried about it."

Robin nodded her head in confirmation, a smile crossing her face. "As I thought."

"Robin. Luffy," Nami said in a shaky voice her eyes on the brink of tears again. Even though she and her crewmates had been together for a long time and they had all sacrificed so much for each other more times than she could count, it always struck her when someone else did something nice for her when for so long in her life she had never had that kind of companionship.

"We're nakama, aren't we?" Luffy said now with a huge smile on his face. He put one arm around Nami's shoulders and the other around Robin's.

"We most certainly are," Robin nodded in agreement.

Nami's smile finally broke through and she also nodded unable to express her gratitude.

"All right!" Luffy said walking towards the door. "Time to set a new course!"

"Right," Nami said regaining her control.

"I'll go tell the crew!" Luffy flung open the door and started to sprint out the room but was held back by one of Robin's devil fruit arms.

"You don't even know where we are let alone where we're going," Robin stated calmly.

Nami laughed. "That's right," she said and pinched her captain's rubbery face. "I'll go out and tell the crew."

Luffy pouted sullenly. "Don't laugh at me because I can't navigate. That's why we have a navigator!"

"Exactly," Nami said and reopened the door that had swung shut again. "Let's set sail for Cocoyashi!"

"Cocoyashi?" Usopp asked in surprise after overhearing Nami's last statement.

Nami nodded. "Yeah, uh…something came up and I have some business to take care of there."

"Business? What business? We're hot on the tail of Red Shanks! How can we go all the way back to East Blue now?" Usopp asked naively.

Nami smiled as she patted her long-nosed comrade on the head. "Because it's MY business, Usopp," she said cheekily.

"And since when did YOUR business take precedence over anyone else's?" Usopp said hotheadedly.

"Nami-swan's business always takes top priority!" Sanji interrupted as he appeared from seemingly nowhere in between Usopp and Nami. "Isn't that right? Nami-swaaaan?"

"That's right," Nami said. "Thank you, Sanji-kun."

"That didn't answer my question," Usopp sulked to himself.

"Oi, Luffy," Franky called from the deck below when the captain appeared out of the room.

"Hm? What's up, Franky?"

"Is what Nami's saying true? Are we abandoning our chase to go to the East Blue?"

Luffy's broad smile stretched from ear to ear as he nodded. "That's right!" he said. "If one of us has business back home then that means we all have business there! We're nakama!"

Franky smiled back. "Of course, captain!"

Zoro, who had been taking a nap on deck lifted an eyelid and glanced over at his captain to show his support.

Chopper and Brook who had been on the top deck experimenting with different processes to give Brook more arms so that he could play the violin, guitar, and harmonica all at the same time, stopped what they were doing to see what was going on.

"East Blue?" Chopper called down. "Are we heading out of the Grand Line?"

"Oh, the East Blue!" Brook said dramatically. "I've never been there before! What music I shall write to commemorate my visit there!"

"That's right!" Luffy said. "Change our course! We're heading back to the East Blue!"

"Aye aye!" the crew shouted in unison, even Usopp.

"All right," Nami said. "We're pretty far west so we need to head south by southeast. 120 degrees!"

"Aye!"