Disclaimer: See disclaimer from Chapter 20.

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Chapter 21

"So my guess is that natural Conqueror's users like Luffy and Ace do this without even thinking," explained Nami. She held up her right fist and it turned black with Haki. "Luffy, when you use Armament Haki, what exactly are you thinking when you use your will to focus your spiritual energy?"

"I'm thinking about wanting to defeat the person I'm fighting, and strengthening myself or armoring myself in order to do it," said Luffy. "Do you do something different?"

"That's it exactly," said Nami. "I use primarily my will to be strong. There's some of that will to defeat the other person or destroy whatever I'm striking, but there's none of that will of domination that makes it Conqueror's. You must be using that, maybe because it's the first kind of Haki you learned and it comes to you automatically. There's nothing wrong with it, it's just slightly different.

"In any case, if I channel my will of domination into my Armament Haki, it looks exactly the same. See?"

Nami released the Armament: Hardening on her fist just for the sake of demonstration, and re-did it. The shiny black coating was identical.

"However, when I use it to do a Haki-enhanced flying slash," she continued, using that hand to draw her sword and extending the Haki to imbue and sharpen the blade with it, "watch the clouds."

Nami swung down and sent a big flying slash out into the water, aiming it so that the sword would pass its point towards one of the puffy clouds flying high in the sky. The cloud split in two and the halves rushed apart, the sky darkened in that area, and of course a long, thin, deep trough appeared in the seawater.

"Whoa!" "Cool!"

"Next demonstration," said Nami. She sheathed her sword and cleared her fist of Haki, then started it up again. "Luffy, fist bump. This is normal Armament Haki on my part."

Luffy, understanding what she wanted, used Hardening to coat his fist with the shiny black armor, and punched her fist with his. There was a loud crack.

"See, nothing special. But when I channel Conqueror's into it," Nami did so and raised her fist, "again, Luffy."

Luffy did it again. A pulse of Conqueror's Haki went out from their fists along with a seeming quake in the fabric of the world, not nearly as strong as when he had clashed with Ace, but still obviously there. Fortunately everyone including Chopper managed to stay awake this time.

"Uh, we probably shouldn't do that again on the Going Merry." said Nami, looking down at the decking. "Anyway, you get the point. If only one person is channeling Conqueror's into their Armament, nothing happens. If both people are, that happens."

"That's so awesome!" said Luffy. "I wonder if I can do the same thing by hitting my fists into each other."

"Not on the Merry!" shouted Usopp. "What if you shake her apart?"

"I don't think it works that way Luffy," said Nami. "I think the world-shaking effect is due to two peoples' powerful wills coming into conflict with each other and clashing in a tangible way. If you do manage it though, let me know because it would be lots of fun to be able to do that."

"My turn to try!" said Nojiko brightly. When Usopp glared at her she said, "The sword slash thing, not the scary breaking-the-world fist smashing thing."

Zoro, naturally, was also quite interested. "How do you do normal Conqueror's Haki?" he asked. "You said I could learn after I unlocked Armament."

Nami grinned and started to teach him.

Everyone who had not already done so spent the rest of the day trying to awaken Armament Haki.

~ Witch on the Waves ~

That night as Robin, Nami and Nojiko went to the girls' room for the night, Robin reminded Nami of her promise.

"You said you would tell me that secret only Nojiko knows, remember? Is now a good time?"

Nojiko was instantly paying attention. "Oooh, really? You're sharing that secret?"

Nami sighed. "Yes, Nojiko, I'm sharing that secret, and yes, it's for exactly the reasons you're imagining."

Nojiko squealed. "Did something happen while you were down there in the lonely tunnels of Crocodile's lair?"

Rolling her eyes, Nami flicked her hand and put up a privacy ward to prevent the boys from hearing. "Other than the promise, no, we just talked. Vivi was there."

"Vivi's been holding out on me!"

"Anyway, the promise," said Nami. She faced Robin. "You wanted to know how I know all my magic, and all the references I've been making to other magicals. To make a long story short, I have the memories and powers of my previous reincarnation, from living in a different world where there were lots of wizards and witches who used magic like me."

"Reincarnation is real?"

"Yes," Nami confirmed. "I can't say anything about the afterlife, there's some unbreakable rule that 'what happens in the afterlife stays in the afterlife.' But I can confirm that reincarnation is real."

Robin contemplated this for a minute. "That's incredibly fascinating. It's certainly a bombshell, as you said. I assume this other world has its own separate history and culture?"

"That's not the bombshell!" interrupted Nojiko. She blurted, "She was 172 years old when she died. And she was a guy! That's the bombshell."

"172 years old? So that's why you always act so mature despite being ten years younger than me."

"Umm… yeah, kinda," said Nami a bit nervously. "And yes, the other world was incredibly different from this one. Even the geography was completely different."

"She was a GUY! Why does no one else think that's the biggest part of the bombshell?" Nojiko waved her hands in the air.

Robin looked at her and shrugged. "It's not that big of a deal."

"It is! She knows what it's like to have sex as a guy!"

"Mm-hmm?" Robin nodded expectantly as if waiting for the punchline.

Nojiko gaped, flabbergasted.

Nami burst out laughing.

Robin grinned and chuckled too. "Teasing of Nojiko aside –"

"Wait, you were teasing me?!"

"– it is interesting. Perhaps you can show me what you looked like as a man? You can use that temporary sex-change spell on yourself, right?" finished Robin.

"Why did I never think of that?" said Nojiko.

Nami looked between them and slowly nodded. "Okay, but remember that I'm a girl now, no matter how comfortable I might be on the other side. My memories of being a guy are kind of pushed to the back, fading in importance. I use a mental magic called Occlumency to keep from losing the detail and accuracy of my memories, but I lived for fourteen years as a girl in this life before receiving those memories, so I identify as a girl."

Robin nodded. "I understand, I think."

Nami stood up and waved her hand. There was a shower of obscuring sparks and a man somewhere in his mid-twenties stood in her place. He had tousled raven black hair, deep green eyes, an aristocratic face, and wore a perfectly fitted formal mens' suit.

"Greetings, ladies," he said in a British accent. "My name is Harry Potter. How do you do?"

"Ohmygod! The accent! The eyes!"

"Tut, tut. No fangirling, sister. It's bad for the brain."

"Hmm." Robin looked him up and down for a moment, then pointed her finger at the ceiling and made a twirling motion. "Turn around."

'Harry' raised an eyebrow, then did as asked, turning a full 360 degrees on the heel of his polished black dress shoes. He quirked a crooked smile at Robin. "So?"

"Nice ass," said Robin nodding calmly, making Nojiko burst out into giggles. "You were married?" she asked, noticing a wedding ring.

'Harry' looked at his ring finger, then disappeared in a cloud of smoke, which quickly vanished to reveal Nami, who sat down on her bed.

"At that point in my life, I was," she said. "We grew apart after about five years and eventually divorced a few years later. Harry Potter was kind of a celebrity and she, unfortunately, bought into that from a very young age. I didn't realize it at first, too young and foolish, but later I realized that it caused her to have some very deeply ingrained expectations of the 'Harry Potter' character based on some fantasy fiction she had read when she was younger. It took years for her to realize that she was overlaying reality with fantasy, and on my end, well, Harry Potter was an idealist. And she was distractingly pretty" – here Nami dropped back into the British accent – "much like you, m'dear."

"Do I look like her?" Robin raised an eyebrow.

"No," said Nami decisively. "She was a redhead with freckles and a hair-trigger temper. You're completely different."

"Good," decided Robin. "Now tell me about this other world."

"Well," said Nami, "for one thing, the geography was less crazy and looked like the product of natural processes. And for another, there was no World Government – rather there were over two hundred countries. Here, let me draw you a quick map…"

The three stayed awake for most of the night talking.

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Knock, knock, knock.

Vivi looked towards the door from where she was going through her dresses in her closet, wondering why she had so many frilly ones that she wouldn't be caught dead in. Oh, right, gifts from Important People who I can't insult by giving these away.

Checking that she was decent, she called, "Come in!"

The door opened and Nami walked in. "Vivi! Is this your bedroom?"

"Nami, it's good to see you! And of course this is my bedroom, didn't you ask someone to find it?"

"Nope! I just checked your location on the map and teleported into the hallway."

"Why did I ever think you would do things the normal way? Anyway, thank you for coming! Your sense of fashion is similar to mine, maybe you have some ideas about what to do with all of these."

Vivi pulled a dress out of her closet in each hand, holding them up. One was a pale blue-green that would clash horribly with her hair, and the other was hot pink with white trimmings. Both were frilly and very much the stereotypical princess dresses.

"Burn them!" declared Nami instantly.

"I can't," said Vivi. "They were given to me by important people and I can't insult them by getting rid of them."

Nami looked closer and took the pink dress from Vivi. She held it up and inspected it, wrinkling her nose. Then she looked between the dress and Vivi, and grinned.

"These were given to you years ago, right?" said Nami. "So most of them won't fit you anymore."

"That's brilliant!" grinned Vivi. "It's the perfect excuse to give them away. Now how to find someone who will wear expensive dresses, but will accept second-hand ones…"

"Or you could just cut them up into rags and donate them to a goodwill store that will sell them as cleaning supplies."

Vivi snickered. "That is what most of these monstrosities deserve, but I think I'll give them to a theatre company or something. Maybe ask them to donate to a charity in exchange."

"You're a very good princess. I would have burned them. Anyway, I was worried about the possibility of the Marines listening in on our Den-Den Mushi calls with a special snail they use, so I created some magical artifacts to replace that method." She pulled out three enchanted mirrors. "Let me show you how to use them…"

Nami took a few minutes to explain and demonstrate, and had Vivi call Nojiko on the Going Merry.

After chatting for a while, talking about new bounty posters and a few other subjects, they ended the call to Nojiko and Nami said, "This morning Nojiko and I went through the loot we picked up during your time as a Straw Hat," Nami pulled out a cloth sack from her ever-present knapsack and presented it to Vivi, "and here's your share."

"My share? You're serious?" Vivi took the sack from Nami. She opened it and looked inside. "Woooow."

It was, of course, bigger on the inside.

"We took the liberty of including what appears to be Drum Kingdom's crown jewels in there as part of the gold by weight. If you don't want to give them back, just melt them down. Their dynasty is gone with Wapol anyway."

"That is a LOT of gold. And there's cash too! How much is this all worth?"

"We estimate it at around 2.2 billion Beri. After discussing it with Luffy we decided to take a much smaller share for the ship, because obviously ships aren't THAT expensive."

"2.2 BILLION? That's over five times the Alabasta annual budget! What am I going to do with all this?"

Nami shrugged. "Keep it under your mattress, for all I care. It's yours. I just wouldn't recommend what Luffy wanted to do with his share."

"What did he do?"

"He tried to spend it all on meat. Imagine Luffy with 3,300 tonnes of meat, trying to eat it all before it starts rotting."

Vivi didn't stop laughing for several minutes.

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Nami sat on the roof of the Merry's meeting deck, sewing runes into a new flying carpet. This one was black with a pattern of thick and thin blood red stripes, and she was using the same gold thread as for her other carpet, but using tighter stitches, smaller runes, and more of them in a different pattern. It was exactly the same size as the other one, Nami having decided that it was the perfect size.

"Is that a new flying carpet, Nami?" asked Usopp, looking up at her from where he had just finished another set of strength-building exercises.

"Yup!" chirped Nami.

"Your old one didn't break, did it? Why do you need a new flying carpet?"

"Nope. The old one wasn't fast enough."

"Didn't you say it goes 450 kilometers per hour? That seems like more than fast enough to me."

"There's no such thing as fast enough," said Nami, looking at Usopp with a mad glint in her eye.

"Okay… why don't you just enhance the old one with Haki? You said Haki enhances magical spells."

"I did, but I encountered problems when I hit the sound barrier. The wind shield on the old one isn't properly suited for going supersonic, so it caused turbulence and threw me off. The Mark II is going to have a big, blunt round wind barrier in front for pushing that bow shock, and it will be able to draw five times the maximum magical power for thrust. I'm better at sewing now, so I'm making the runes with more precision, which makes it more efficient as well. And this one will have charms to improve stiffness at high speeds, improved comfort and sticking charms, optional temperature regulation, and a Notice-Me-Not ward in addition to the rest of the stealth so I can more easily hide from Observation Haki."

"I don't understand half of what you're talking about, but is there anything to protect you from crashing?"

"Nope!"

"Why not? I though safety would be an important concern when going that fast."

"Going fast is about the thrill! Who cares about safety? Right Luffy?"

"Shishishi, yup! Can I get the first ride when you finish it?"

"You're both crazy! Remind me never to get on that thing."

"Aww, but Usopp, what happened to being a brave warrior of the sea?" prodded Nami.

"Brave does not mean taking useless risks!"

"Maybe you'll unlock Armament Haki to protect yourself if we crash. That would make it not useless."

Usopp backed away. "Never. Getting. On. That. Thing."

~ Witch on the Waves ~

"Hey Robin. I can't believe I never asked this before, but do you know how Eternal Poses are made?"

"No, I'm afraid I've never looked into that. The ones I've used were always given to me or purchased. Why?"

"Well, I'm thinking it would be useful to a set for all the Grand Line islands I'm mapping out. If it doesn't turn out to be too difficult, of course. I'm assuming that you actually have to be on the island in question in order to make an Eternal Pose for it."

"I could give you the location of a shop in the West Blue where I have purchased more than one Eternal Pose. I assume they have a supplier and you could track down a maker from there."

"That would be perfect, thanks! I don't care if I have to bribe a maker with lot of money, if this works the set I make will be worth a lot more than that maker can imagine."

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Nami did track down a maker of Eternal Poses (on her old flying carpet, whose speed was starting to irritate her as she anticipated the new one). The man initially refused to tell Nami anything, but when she offered 10 million Beri, he looked unsure. When she made it 15 million, he almost caved, but pulled himself together and greedily demanded 20 million. Nami looked at him coldly and said, "17 million, and not a Beri more." He accepted.

"The making of an Eternal Pose itself is fairly simple," he said. "The complex part is that you need an alloy made from five specific metals mixed together, very few of which can be found on the same island. And once you've created this alloy, you have to bring it to the island where you want the Eternal Pose to point to, melt it, and form it into the needle for your Eternal Pose while in the magnetic field of that island. All that traveling around between islands, some of them inside the Grand Line, is what makes Eternal Poses so rare.

"Log Poses, on the other hand, only require two of those metals simply welded together, one on each end of the compass needle, and they're useful for more than one island. So they're both cheaper and more in demand."

Nami nodded. "Tell me about these metals. Where can they be found? Do I need to smelt them or can I purchase them from people on the island?"

Not long afterward, Nami had created her first Eternal Pose and started working out how to speed up the process with magic. She decided that she may as well create a whole batch of Eternal Poses for each island. Economies of scale, after all. She might want to give them to allies or sell the sets eventually.

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Nami finally finished her new flying carpet after working hard at it for several days, with breaks for training, running off to move her Grand Line Log Poses and map new islands, and learning to make Eternal Poses.

By this time the entire crew, even the reluctant Usopp, was anticipating the finish of Nami's new magic rug. So when she tied off and cut the final stitch, experimentally channeled magic into it, and made it float, Chopper and Luffy cheered, making everyone come running.

"It's finished, it's finished!" "I called dibs! First ride!"

"Alright, alright, settle down," said Nami. "The first flight is mine alone, I have to make sure there's nothing wrong with it before I take a passenger, and I have to learn how it handles."

She hopped on the rug and sat cross-legged. Focusing, she turned on and off the wind shield, made it go invisible and visible, turned on and off the Notice-Me-Not, flew it in a few circles around the Going Merry in both directions, flipped upside down and tested the sticking charm, then made it rise vertically until it was half a kilometer above.

Then she flopped on her belly, facing forward, and accelerated.

"Did she turn on the invisibility?" asked Chopper. "Why did she do that?"

"No, she didn't go invisible," said Usopp, staring up with wide eyes. "She just moved so fast I barely saw a blur."

Twenty minutes later, everyone heard a rumbling boom from high above them.

"That's her! Nami's back!" shouted Nojiko.

As Nami circled around and stopped beside the Merry, they could all see that her hair was tousled, her mouth was stretched into an extremely wide grin, and her eyes were wide and sparkling as if she had seen something amazing and was still re-living it.

"You did it!" said Nojiko. "You broke the sound barrier!"

Nami laughed. "Broke the sound barrier? No sis, I went way beyond that! My new baby can go twice the speed of sound without even using Haki! And when I added Haki to the magic, I clocked myself at TWELVE times the speed of sound. I had to stay above the clouds in order to avoid killing fish with my sonic boom. If I had been going that speed on my approach just now, I would have ripped the sail off the Merry."

"Twelve times the speed of sound?" Nojiko blinked. "I don't even know how fast that is."

Nami did some mental math. "Let's put it this way," she said, "if I could keep up that level of Haki output for long enough, and if I could keep my directions straight, I could travel both halves of the Grand Line, from beginning to end, in less than three hours."

"That's… very, very fast, I guess. Still not making the instinctual connection."

"Put it another way. If I dropped an iron cannonball from twelve kilometers high, which is about where I was traveling at that speed, it would melt before it hits the ground due to the air friction. In fact, it might even catch fire and vaporize, I'm not sure. A rock the same size would certainly burn up into nothing."

"Holy shit!"

"Good thing I put temperature regulation in this baby, huh?" Nami patted the flying carpet she was still sitting on.

"Can I go for a ride now?" asked Luffy.

"Alright. You and Nojiko first. And you'll have to use Armament Haki in order to withstand the acceleration, because I don't want to start slowly, got it? Or you'll get smushed just from me taking off."

"I say again," said Usopp. "I'm not getting on that thing."

"I suppose I can start slower for those who don't have Armament yet."

"Good, then I can still go!" Chopper was bouncing in anticipation.

"I would also like a turn," said Robin.

"Might I request to go at the same time as Robin?" asked Sanji, obviously liking the idea of being in close quarters with Nami and Robin.

Nami looked at him. "Hell no, perv. You can go at the same time as Zoro, and we can see who loses his lunch first when I do aerobatics."

"Love cook doesn't stand a chance," taunted Zoro.

"Okay, Nojiko, Luffy, I'm putting bubble-head charms on us because the hypersonic shockwave turns some of the air into poisonous gases."

"You sure this is safe, sis?"

"I came back alive, didn't I?"

"Shishishi! I can't wait!"

~ Witch on the Waves ~

Nami slept well that night. Boosting her flying carpet with Haki drained her reserves quite fast.

Totally worth it.