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"That was a test," Rayleigh sighs, "and you damn well failed."
Nao and Rayleigh stand alone in the Revolutionary Army's sickbay, finally getting to the conversation that had begged to be had ever since Rayleigh had observed her odd behavior at the lighthouse.
Nao looks up at the man, mouth gaping at his blunt statement. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know what you are—an oracle, a time-traveler, or the second coming of Jesus himself—and I don't particularly care, but you do intend on living while traveling with me, right?" Rayleigh asks the half-rhetorical question, giving Nao the most exasperated look she has ever seen over the course of two lifetimes.
She practically gawks at the wild accusations slipping out of his mouth in the heat of the moment—two of which are a little too close to the truth for comfort. Her mind frantically searches for an appropriate response, but there's nothing she can think of to say. In fact, there's probably nothing to say. She knows exactly what Rayleigh is referring to—her unfiltered shows of knowledge eons beyond her physical age are, at minimum, well worthy of raising suspicions. All she can muster is a weak defense of her actions. "I-I saved his life!"
Rayleigh's eyebrow quirks. He's not angry. Instead, he seems wholly disappointed—like a teacher preparing to chide his student. "Yes, after I volunteered you to do it. Do you really think Dragon had no personnel who could deal with a common issue like frostbite?"
"No…" she relents, looking away in shame.
This reaction, though no one will ever know it, is merely the watered down version of how she actually feels. Her mental landscape, unlike the rather mild expression on her face, is in complete shambles (a total shitshow, if she's allowed to be blunt).
She doesn't particularly mind whether or not Rayleigh knows of her secret. It would just be a hell of a lot easier to maneuver if he didn't know.
He pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes. The pause in their conversation gives her the perfect chance to truly reflect on who Rayleigh is. It's then that she fully grasps who stands in front of her. It's Rayleigh, but it isn't the one who'd become Luffy's wise and nurturing teacher, nor is it the one who'd gain a renewed hope for the world. It's the Rayleigh who'd just lost his captain—the Rayleigh still utterly consumed with grief and contempt. The man is exasperated with her presence—a burden who he had taken with him on a whim.
"I-I see things," she says abruptly, stuttering.
His eyes flicker open. "Come again?"
"I see things," she reiterates, knowing damn well she is lying through her teeth.
"I… I see…" he trails off, and she's sure she's gotten him completely confused.
As quickly as she can, she isolates the things she can reveal that won't bring too many consequences. Eventually, she settles for a half-lie that probably won't bring Armageddon to her door(ship?)step. She doesn't want to stretch the lie out too far, but staying as vague as she was being would get her nowhere. "Ever since I was born, I could see things. I can, uh, remember my birth, but nothing before that. I just sort of, well, knew things."
She's downplaying her knowledge of the world, and she's certain that Rayleigh is aware of it, but finally a great weight feels like it's been lifted off of hers shoulders. For far too long she had internalized her secret, and for just as long she had been labeled as an anomaly—a freak by the standards of freaks. He's the first person she's (sort of) told of the (eerily too literal) skeleton in her closet, and—surprisingly to her—he seems to be taking it rather well.
"An oracle, huh?" he comments to himself, words so hushed she can barely hear them being said under his breath. "Roger and I met a few people like you on our last voyage."
She nearly falls over. A decade had probably been taken off of her life from how stressed she had been trying (though not succeeding in the slightest) to obscure the (sort of) truth behind her uncannily mature persona, and here Rayleigh is barely giving a hum of recognition at her sudden confession. (She swears she's already getting grey hairs from the absurdity of it all.) It's too casual—too normal of a response for a revelation of that magnitude. (For fuck's sake, she was practically confessing to being a person capable of screwing the world a hundred times over as she so pleased!)
"That's it?" she cried incredulously, beside herself with frustration at the lackluster reaction.
"What?" he asks, looking at her quizzically. "I'm more than ten times your age, Nao. There's people like you everywhere. Fishman Island, Skypiea—I could go on. I'm sure there was a lack of people like you in the North Blue, but we're in the Grand Line. An oracle is probably the most worldly thing you'll see in this part of the ocean," he laughs, and for a brief moment he seems to look beyond the small, dingy kitchen they were in to reminisce over his past adventures.
Her frustration with his vapid acknowledgement of her life-long held secret promptly dies away—leaving as quickly as it had come. How foolish was she to think she was special in a world where odd attributes were what kept one alive?
"Ah, pardon me for getting nostalgic—and for scaring you like that. It's just… been a while."
He doesn't expand on what he means, but she doesn't need him to. It's obvious that he was still struggling to cope with Roger's death and the symbolic end to his time venturing the seas. Inside her, something stirs—a feeling akin to nostalgia for those same adventures she had once witnessed through a screen. (She loveD that ShOW. Love LoVE LOVED iT. When fatheR and mOthEr were away AWaY AWAY, that's all she would ever watch.)
"It's… fine…" she says awkwardly, not quite sure what she should do to comfort the man.
Apparently, though, he needs no consolation, as his expression shifts to one full of determination. "I will, however, have to change our plan."
"What?"
She stills in alarm. As far as she had known, there hadn't been a plan—they were simply going to be traveling companions that went wherever the sea willed them to go. After all, she did have another decade or so to kill before anything too important happened.
Rayleigh notices the panic and attempts to quell her fears. His wording, though, doesn't make her feel any better. "We're not going to drift around anymore."
"What do you mean? I won't go back to that whore house just because you think I'm too young or too fragile to be on the seas," she states firmly, finally gathering enough courage to look Rayleigh directly in his eyes. Of course, that momentary lapse of courage quickly dissipates, and internally she curses herself for her lack of a filter. (You'd think after the whole Ohara shitshow, she'd have learned to keep her mouth shut, huh?)
"First and foremost, don't say whore, brat. It's weird coming from you." He looks her up and down. "Secondly, though you are a little too green for sailing, I won't be leaving you to Fate's mercy just yet," he teases.
Nao looks up at him, now utterly bemused at what he was getting at.
"We're going to Sabaody," he states it matter-of-factly, and she knows this decision is indisputable. "Immediately," he adds to further get his point across.
Nao can't help but question his motives—it never was in her nature to bite her tongue. "B-But why?"
He looks her dead in the eye, and for reasons beyond what she can comprehend, she finds herself unable to look away.
"I don't what it is that was supposed to happen here on Ohara, but I'm absolutely sure it wasn't this. There's a feeling I can't push away about how things turned out. The longer we're in the area, the more I feel displaced. This may come across as an accusation, but I'm guessing that your prior knowledge about what was going to transpire here had something to do with it. If there's a determined order to things, and your actions are what's messing with it, I can't have you roaming around while you're still so young. You can't even take care of yourself enough to hide your seeing abilities from people you've just met."
Nao's blood drains from her face. He doesn't know it, but he had hit the nail right on the mark, and what he was describing—the weird sense of wrongness in Ohara—Nao had felt too. It's as if the Universe was trying to deny that what had happened had happened.
Still, she refuses to have her fight against Fate end here. "But—" she begins a weak protest, but immediately it's batted down.
"I'm not denying you the right to sail forever, Nao, but if you wish to survive on the seas, it'd be best if you trained first."
"Huh?" The disgruntled noise slips out without a second thought.
It's obvious what he's hinting at, but what it is is so ludicrous that she's positive the past three years have been a hellishly long fever dream.
"I suggest you train under me until you're capable enough of setting sail on your own. Of course, I'll often be busy, but I'm sure you'll be a force to be reckoned with before you're as greyed as me," he jokes, confirming her suspicions. "You know, even though it feels like something unfixable has been done, I look forward to what you'll do, Nao."
She really can't believe her ears. "I—"
What she's about to say—whether it was a word of consent to his plan or not—doesn't matter, as Rayleigh quickly cuts her off once more. (If this man couldn't make a shish kebab out of her in two seconds flat, she might've said something about his discourteous habit.)
"I've already sent Hachi to Sabaody ahead of us. He'll be asking Shakky to get us discreetly onto the island. Dragon has given us a small boat as thanks for your treatment of Saul. Grab as many supplies as you can," he informs her, and before a word against his decision can be said, he's vanished from the kitchen.
Left alone now, Nao suppresses a frustrated shout. Who the hell did this guy think he was?
But despite his awful sales-pitch for the future he'd chosen for her, she finds herself obeying his order. She scavenges the area for necessities—food, water, and anything else if the sort—and then she is off.
It what seems like a millisecond, she and Rayleigh are back on another tiny, shabby boat, waving behind them to yet another group of people that she'd probably (and perhaps unfortunately) cross paths with once again.
As their ships part ways, her line of sight shifts to the area where Saul laid—still unconscious, but undoubtedly alive. Dragon had assured them that he'd 'take care' of Saul, and though Nao isn't exactly sure what he meant by such an unspecific promise, she's confident that it's something that'll raise hell in a few years. She can't help but shake at the sight of it—not in fear, but rather in giddy anticipation. In front of her, disappearing into the horizon, is the first bit of proof that things, indeed, could be changed.
Her first few splashes in the timeline had been made, the ripples already forming and, without any intentions of doing so, she had dragged Rayleigh into the waters of time, too.
Ta-da! The ball has been thrown, and my god is it rolling hehe. I can' wait for your guys' reactions to where I'm taking little Nao in this story.
Did you guys enjoy the chapter? Worry not, I won't be making Nao super strong. I do intend on keeping her greatest strength her intellect. How do you guys feel about Rayleigh and Nao's begrudging partnership? Will Nao ever learn to not do things on a whim?
Leave a review if you enjoyed, or even if you didn't! I'd love to hear from y'all (and we're so close to 50 reviews!)!
Have a great day! ~