It was all Nami could do to not break down sobbing.

They knew.

They knew all along that she was trying to buy back their village. They didn't say anything, because they wanted her to be able to leave without regret if she wanted to. Because they didn't want her to think they relied on her so much.

But...

For all they knew, they didn't know the most important part.

Arlong made sure that she could never leave, by threatening their lives. They didn't know that Cocoyashi got so much more leeway than the other villages because of her, because that was part of the bargain.

They didn't know that the moment she missed a deadline to return home from one of her trips, they were all doomed. They didn't know that it wasn't just the money, or the price, it was their lives.

The worst of it was, though, that they didn't know.

They didn't know that Arlong had promised her that he would never kill one of them. Oh, no. They would live. They would just be sent to a place on the Grand Line called Sabaody, as slaves.

They didn't know that Arlong knew some slavers, or that some of the people in the towns Arlong claimed had already been sold off.

It was a punishment reserved for those that truly angered him, because death was too good for them, you couldn't suffer when you were dead after all.

He'd made sure to tell her, in great detail, just how slaves sent to Sabaody were treated, and those of the Arlong crew that were escaped slaves themselves had shown her their scars.

She hated them. Hated that they, former slaves themselves, were so willing to sell others into slavery.

Hated that her village, the people she loved, were being threatened in such a way.

And the only thing she could do about it was steal money, and hope that she got home again before Arlong decided that he'd been annoyed enough by a Cocoyashi villager, and destroyed them anyway.

Hated that the only thing she could do about it was beg Luffy for help, hated that she was too weak to fight for them herself.

It took all her control not to start sobbing with relief that it was almost over.