Hey everyone! New chap. Was supposed to be up Sunday but I'm awful.
Big shoutout to Xolef226 for beta reading and everyone on pa treon who voted for the illustration! I got a bit carried away and did more than 1. Felt like having fun today.
X
「Your bounty has been reevaluated!」
「Total: 156 000 000」
「You now have a bounty!」
One… two… three…
There were a lot of zeroes. Like, a lot of zeroes. I'd seen a few bounty posters of other East Blue pirates before, and I'd never seen a bounty with this many zeroes before. This bounty was huge.
I was just that impressive, I guess.
I puffed out my chest and grinned.
"Hey, Big Nose!"
Big Nose didn't like it when I called him big nose. He got angry again right away, so I made sure to talk fast.
"Guess what? So it turns out that I have a bounty and it's way bigger than yours for sure!"
He made a serious face. Everyone was looking at me. Even Nami, Koby and Zoro.
Heh. Of all the bounty posters that I've seen, mine was the biggest by far. Big Nose was just like those other guys, right? It should surprise him too.
I wiped the underside of my nose with a finger and my grin got wider.
"One hundred and fifty-six thousand Berry!"
I waited for them to react.
Big Nose's crew burst out laughing.
Eh?
I didn't get what was so funny. I looked over to Zoro, Koby and Nami, but they weren't very helpful. They looked pretty lost. Weren't they paying attention?
My eyes snapped back to Big Nose. He threw his hand that was holding knives at me but pulled it back when I reached out to grab it.
He was the only guy on his crew that wasn't laughing. He looked pretty angry, actually. Was he jealous?
"Shitty brat. You think I'd believe that!?"
"Hah?"
Now I got angry.
"What, you think I'm lying? That's my bounty! I'm serious!"
He didn't answer. Instead, he tried to skewer me with his knives again. His body parts were flying all over the place; his crew started cheering him on.
Mm… that was cool, yeah.
Wait.
Was he messing around right now? Was that why he was doing all this crazy wacky stuff?
I clenched my teeth.
"Hyuu… I'll show you!"
I stepped forward.
Big Nose's eyes went wide.
"Ha—"
I punched him square in the face before he had the chance to react and sent him tumbling straight into the bar behind him. All the clown pirate guys that forgot that we were fighting suddenly remembered that that was what we were doing and rushed at me.
They didn't get very far.
"Oni… giri!"
A bunch of them got cut down right away. Zoro was standing in front of me with all three swords out.
"Don't worry about these guys, Captain. Leave them to me."
I grinned.
The pirates looked nervous all of a sudden.
"Oi… did Roronoa just call that kid 'Captain'?"
"He's kind of, like, really strong, isn't he?"
"I thought he said his bounty was only—"
"Never mind that! I don't have a good feeling about this kid, man."
The guy on a unicycle and a guy dressed like a mouse pushed their way past the other clown pirate guys and stared Zoro down. My crewmate looked confident enough, though, so I'd just leave it to him.
"M'kay. Good luck, Zoro!"
One of the pirates took out a gun and shot at me. I didn't bother moving; Zoro swatted it away.
So he was serious about not letting these guys bother me, then. Good.
"Na… Nami-san! Please be still?"
I was about to go over to where I knocked Big Nose into the counter and back, but Koby's cries caught my attention. He was fiddling with the ropes that were keeping Nami tied to that chair.
I waved at them.
"Oh! Hey, sorry Nami! I forgot that you were there."
"..."
All the pirate guys suddenly turned to her and Koby. They had scared looks on their faces.
Nami screeched.
"You idiot! Don't bring their attention over here!"
"Ah. Sorry!"
Hm… Big Nose still wasn't moving. I had a bit of time, right?
I looked over my shoulder to see that Zoro was still having a pretty easy time keeping all those guys distracted at once. I nodded to myself and walked over to Koby and Nami.
"Here," I said. "Let me help."
I grabbed the knot from Koby before he could do anything.
"Luffy-san, you—"
"Ah. I made it worse."
"How did you manage that!?" Nami complained. She kept trying to headbutt me away.
"Just break the damn chair!" I heard Zoro shout.
Zoro was smart. If it was just Nami and Koby and me trying to figure stuff out, we wouldn't get very far.
I reached over Nami's back, grabbed the chair and pulled it apart. Nami Squeaked and fell onto her butt.
"You okay?" I asked.
She just sat there for a second.
"...Hey. About what Buggy was saying about your devil fruit—"
"Big Nose is probably gonna get up soon. Talk to you later!"
I ran off.
X
Nami felt a strong and immediate desire to throttle Luffy when he totally ignored her and walked away mid-sentence, but she suppressed it in favour of focusing on the larger issue at hand.
That issue being that they were in the hideout of a nefarious pirate crew, and the only thing standing between her and Koby and getting chopped into a million pieces was a guy with enough swords to make someone think that he was compensating for something.
She would have loved to stop and think about the implications of Luffy's superhuman strength having nothing to do with the devil fruit that he ate, but for the moment, surviving was more important.
She looked at Koby. He was just as freaked out as she was.
…No. More so. He was travelling with them, but she kept forgetting that he was just a kid. He didn't want to be out here with a bunch of pirates. He was with them because he had to be, just like her.
And yet… until now, he had been taking it all like a champ. Much better than how she was taking it, evidently.
"..."
She got lost in her own thoughts. It was something that was allowed to her by the efforts of the two men fighting off—
"Eek!"
A bullet flew past Koby's ear. He started to stammer.
"Wha-what?"
Nami tried to follow the trajectory of the bullet with her eyes. Two of Buggy's goons were trudging toward them with creepy grins on their faces.
She whipped her head toward Zoro.
"Hey!" she yelled. "You missed some!"
The swordsman paused, blades locked with the tall man in the unicycle and a man dressed like an animal.
"Hah?" he drawled with disinterest clear in his tone. " How's that my problem?"
A pit formed in her gut.
"What do you mean?"
He pushed the pirates off of him with relative ease, and turned around as he did so. He faced the two of them with a smile.
"My job is to protect my captain. If some of these guys decide to go after you instead… well, that's on you, isn't it?"
A cold sweat ran down her spine.
He didn't really mean that, did he? Was this… was this because of how she tried to swindle them?
For a moment, she thought she saw Arlong's mocking sneer instead of Zoro's disinterested scowl.
It was. Of course it was.
That Luffy kid was nice and all, but in the end, a pirate was a pirate. It was her own fault for letting herself get swept along until now. She was stupid for having thought any better of them, if even for a short while.
The clowns that Zoro was fighting also heard what he said, unfortunately. One by one, they trickled past him; as he said, he did nothing to stop them.
He offered a parting word of advice.
"Get out of here. A battlefield is no place for someone like you."
Everything was going horribly.
Her immediate reaction was to get angry.
Someone like me?
She was angry. She was angry at him, she was angry at herself, and she was angry at these pirates being pirates.
Who was this… this asshole to tell her what she could or couldn't do? Did he think that she was too weak to make it out of this in one piece? Was that what he was banking on? She didn't get this far by getting lucky! She could handle a few mooks just fine!
And then she looked at Koby.
He was still stiff as a board. His tiny body was trembling uncontrollably; he could do nothing but wait for his fate to come to him.
For all that she told herself that she could deal with these guys, he could not.
That was just how the world worked. There were things that normal people could do and things that they couldn't. They could have dreams, aspirations, goals… but what they wanted never mattered to any sort of higher being and never would.
It sucked. It sucked a lot. She could attest to that with first-hand experience to show for it.
She grabbed Koby's hand.
"Let's go," she whispered.
Not giving him a chance to react, she pulled him along. The pirates gave chase, but she wasn't worried; even with Koby dragging her down, she was confident in her ability to make a getaway.
Now was not the time to be full of herself. That was a good way to make sure that things didn't go your way. What she wanted was to keep Koby and herself safe, not prove Zoro wrong. If she let Koby die because of some misconstrued desire to prove herself to these scum, then she might as well have stopped pretending to be better than the lot of them right then and there.
Arlong had spent the better part of the past decade trying to get her to cave on that front. It would have been so easy to tell everyone precious to her that she wasn't actually one of his goons; to give it all up and accept her fate with the rest of them. Oh, how he would've loved that.
They could all eat shit for all she cared. Arlong and these guys both.
They burst through the doors of the bar. She could've sworn that there were less pirates following her than there were an instant before, but the fact that there were pirates following her at all meant that she didn't have the luxury to stop and think about it for too long.
Here eyes moved frantically from left to right, trying to find—
"There!" she exclaimed, pulling Koby along with her through an alleyway between two buildings. Anything was better than trying to run away from someone on an open street. That was just inviting them to shoot you in the back.
Thankfully, it wasn't a dead end. Though they were unable to lose the pirates, there were enough twists and turns to keep them at bay.
"You can't run forever, girlie!"
Koby's laboured breaths gave the pirate's words more weight than she would have liked. Nami cursed under her breath.
She looked over her shoulder one more time. There were two pirates following her that she could see. Both men, both pretty large compared to her.
Her fingers traced the hem of her skirt and touched the bare metal of her three-section staff.
One more corner.
They would run around the next corner and she would take out her weapon. Hopefully, she'd be able to nail them in the head before they realized what had happened.
When they did turn that corner, however, she did not expect to be met face to face with a short old man wearing pots and pans tied to his body as what seemed to be armour.
She noticed the shotgun in his hands.
Her eyes widened but she couldn't stop herself. Both she and Koby could only watch themselves helplessly as they barrelled toward him.
The old man let them stumble straight past him. He lifted his firearm and tensed.
BANG!
Right as the pirates turned the corner, a spray of bullets hit them at point blank range. They dropped like rocks.
Koby's chest was definitely heaving as heavily as hers was. She could hear it. They both just stood there for a second, staring at the back of the old man who had saved them.
He looked over his head and his stern eyes met Nami's. She was as still as a statue.
Then he smiled.
"Are you two all right?"
In sync, a sharp exhale of relief escaped them.
X
"Huaah! So that's how it is!"
The old man laughed and slapped her on the back. The slaps were pretty hard; she lurched forward and winced. Koby, who was a little ways away being fretted over by a pair of middle aged women, smiled at her sheepishly.
"Those bastards… chasing around a pair of unsuspecting travellers like yourselves. Being cornered by a bunch of pirates was probably the last thing you thought would be waiting for you when you docked on our little island. You have nothing to do with this. For what it's worth, I'm sorry."
Koby scratched the back of his head. Nami threw up her hands and waved them in front of the man.
"No! No, it's no worry. We've chalked it up to bad luck. If anything, we should be thanking you for being there at the time."
Nami looked at the group gathered around the small, out-of-the-way shack that they'd been brought to. Men, women and children, all visibly worn thin from the trials that they'd been forced to face by the hands of Buggy the Clown. As battered as they were, there was still fight in their eyes. A desire to be free. It was something that she could respect.
"Lass, do you have a boat?"
She blinked.
"I…" a pause. "I do. Why do you ask?"
Two firm hands were placed on her shoulders. The old man's abrupt movements caused his makeshift armor to jingle.
"Get out of here while you still can. Things are about to get really ugly."
"..."
She had a bad feeling about this.
Suddenly, she was forced to reevaluate her impression of the villagers.
There was fight in their eyes, but there was more than that too.
There was desperation. They were scared… and still they were all gathered here for a reason.
Considering how they were all brandishing miscellaneous sharp objects, and other such makeshift weapons, it was clear to her that they were looking for a fight.
At best, it would be a suicide mission.
Koby shared the sentiment, obviously.
"Wait!" shouted the kid, breaking free from the two ladies that were fretting over him. He ran up to the old man and stood as tall as he could. "Whatever it is that you think you're about to do, please reconsider. Pirates aren't a bunch that you should be taking lightly. Have you perhaps tried calling the—"
"Of course we've called the marines, boy," the man answered tiredly. "There's nothing that they're willing to do. We sent word of our situation weeks ago. Not a single ship has sailed our way."
A chilling thought crossed Nami's mind. The closest marine base… that would've been Shells Town, right? There's no way that someone as despicable as the captain of that place would have had any desire to help them out of a sense of duty. If all of this happened a little later, after Luffy took care of that guy…
No. It didn't make sense to dwell on that. What was done was done.
The old man turned his back to them.
"I'm the mayor of this town. I shoulder a great responsibility, and that responsibility is the safety and wellbeing of everyone that calls Orange Town their home. They've taken everything from us. Our homes, our wealth, our food… We won't survive another month at this rate. I've thought this through already, consequences and all."
A fishman's muzzle popped into her mind, its lips pulled taught with rows of sharp, pearly whites beading down at her mockingly as though she were nothing more than a trapped animal.
Yes. She empathized.
"Please! Listen to me. I didn't mention it before, but right now there's another group of pirates fighting Buggy the Clown and his men. There's—" she cut herself off and rethought her phrasing. "They'll beat them."
The mayor clicked his tongue. The nearby villagers didn't sound too convinced either.
"Another pirate crew? Replacing one tumor with another won't do us any good."
She shook her head.
"The other crew won't do anything! I mean…" They wouldn't have a reason to take her word for it. "They're a group of two. They wouldn't have the manpower to take over an island even if they wanted to."
"Two men? They don't stand a chance then" he shot back dismissively.
He had a point.
No matter how you twisted it, they were grossly outnumbered, and they weren't any sort of advantaged species like fishmen. It was stupid to even think that they would come out the other end victorious. It betrayed common sense.
Even she wasn't totally convinced, but after seeing everything that Luffy had done, a small part of her couldn't help but believe that he had a chance. Even up against another man who had eaten a devil fruit. Though she only saw a small part of the confrontation between them, things had been going Luffy's way, mostly. Right?
Even if it wasn't true, she had to stick with that story. These people were civilians who probably hadn't ever gotten into anything more serious than a barfight. If she could make them believe that they didn't have to get involved, then…
Koby looked like he was about to say something, but she shot him a pointed look to shut him up. Was he going to try to spout some bullshit about Luffy and Zoro being "good pirates"? The validity of that opinion was in contention to be sure, but these people wouldn't buy it regardless. Trying to push that agenda would do nothing but make these people wonder if she and the kid weren't pirates as well.
"They're strong," she affirmed. "Just wait it out a little longer. You don't have anything to lose, right? One of those crews is going to win; at the very least, you don't gain anything from trying to fight both of them at once, right?"
The mayor had a contemplative look on his face. The other villagers, who up till now had been psyching themselves up for what was probably going to be a suicidal bloodbath, looked to eachother uncertainly. This was progress.
"...No," the mayor decided. "Our treasury and food stocks have both been taken over by Buggy. If those other pirates do beat him, even if they don't want anything else from us, those provisions will surely be ransacked. We'll be left with nothing. Dying now or dying later… it'll all be the same."
Damn it. Was this old bastard even thinking straight?
…Of course not. He'd already built himself up to this moment. So had everyone else. Short of knocking them all out, nothing could be done. Not that she had the means to do that
Nami cursed under her breath.
"How about this," she began to speak once more, voice raised enough for everyone to hear. "I'm pretty light on my feet; how about I go steal everything back from Buggy while those guys are busy."
There was an almost visceral reaction among those present, though no one vocalized that painfully evident objection right away. She understood it perfectly well: she was an outsider. This wasn't her problem.
She thought of Genzo, the sheriff of her own village. If a stranger came up to him and offered their aid in a fashion that would risk their life to save his own, surely he'd reject that offer. If people weren't so stubborn, life would be so much easier.
Surprisingly, it was Koby who voiced his concerns first. "Nami-san, are you sure?"
…Hm. All right. She'd work with this.
Nami crossed her arms and did her best to sound like she was talking down to him.
"Hah!? What the hell do you mean 'am I sure'? I've been robbing pirates blind my whole life. Don't insult me by insinuating that they have any chance of catching me."
He looked sufficiently chastised. So did the villagers for that matter.
It took a great deal of effort to keep a smirk off her face.
The mayor's shoulders' drooped.
"If… if you're—"
"Of course I'm sure!" She spun around and started walking away before anyone could get another word in. "Koby! Stay here; this is a job that's easier done alone. I'll be back before you know it."
She didn't hear any talkback from him. Hopefully the underlying message of "Don't let them do anything stupid" got through to him.
X
Considering that she had allowed herself to get swept along in the heat moment and stuck her neck out for these random people for reasons that really didn't hold up in her head in retrospect, Nami figured that the current situation wasn't all that bad.
For one, as she circled back to ground zero, she came to the realization that there was pretty much no one patrolling the area. Odds were, Buggy's whole crew was busy with Luffy and Zoro.
The remaining issue, however, was that she really didn't know where these guys were keeping their treasure and stuff.
She was good with this sort of thing usually. Pirates had predictable patterns that made quick extractions pretty easy: when they made themselves comfortable somewhere, everything of value got moved off the ship — with the pirates generally moving their ship itself into dry dock for tarring and repairs — and onto land, usually wherever their new base of operations was located.
Unless the previous owners of the bar had installed some sort of trap door leading to a secret room, however, that treasure wasn't there. For however hectic the short amount of time she had spent occupying that space might have been, the building's insides seemed congruent enough with its facade for her to strike off the possibility of hidden rooms.
The next place to look would be one of the abandoned houses.
Checking those went by pretty quickly. There weren't many houses that were undamaged and even less that were close by. Nothing.
At that point, she was pretty stumped.
Where else could it be? She didn't have time to meander.
"..."
They weren't dumb enough to leave everything on their ship, were they?
X
They were.
There was no human presence around or on the ship whatsoever, but she still made sure to look around and check for lingering pirates before walking into the vault down on the basement level.
It was about what she expected. Gold, jewels, miscellaneous valuables…
All pirates were the same. They just grabbed whatever shined, huh?
She took the bandana that she kept tied to her leg and wrapped it around her head. There was a pretty large and thick sack of gold nearby; it would do just fine as a way for her to bring the valuables back to the village. She could afford to make a few trips, probably.
Hopefully.
And man, there was a lot. More than the cumulative wealth of the village before Buggy came here for sure. If she took a good chunk for herself, no one relevant would notice.
"Hm?"
She paused right before tossing the bag of treasure over her shoulder. A tiny, nondescript chest, maybe a little larger than her forearm, was resting on its side on the floor.
She dropped the sack and walked over to the chest. Holding it with both hands just in case something fragile was inside, she popped it open.
"..."
It was a map.
She grabbed the frayed sheet of paper and tossed the wooden box to the side. She squinted, trying to figure out what exactly—
Nami gasped.
A map to the grand line.
Out of habit, she looked right and left before pocketing it. A moment later, she realized what she did.
…She had no use for something like this, did she? The grand line was way too dangerous.
But I could make so much money.
She shook her head.
Absolutely not. It was a stupid idea.
She ignored the fact that at no point did she take that map out of her pocket.
Nami got ready to leave the room. As she did, a groan sounded behind her: it was the telltale sound of something very large scraping against nearby objects as it toppled over.
She flung her head over her shoulder. It was exactly what she thought it was.
A comically-large kanabo, one that she didn't notice until now due to its black iron-like appearance melting into the shadows of the walls, pressed against and crushed everything in its path as it travelled straight to the ground. Her eyes widened moments before impact; she dropped what she was carrying and covered her ears.
BAM!
"..."
Well, if there was someone on this ship and they didn't know that she was here, they did now.
She tried to calm her furiously-beating heart. What knocked that thing over? Was the sack of gold holding it up or something?
…Man, now that she got a good look at it, it really was huge. Almost three times her size. She couldn't imagine a regular person being able to pick it up; it must've taken quite a few pirates to bring it here.
Wait a second.
Something should be occurring to her right now. That kanobo sparked something in her head for whatever reason, but she couldn't figure out why.
Meh. It couldn't have been that important if she couldn't remember. It was time for her to get the hell out of here. Priorities and all that.
X
「You have defeated [Buggy the Clown]!」
「You have been awarded [Infamy (Uncommon)]!」
「+10 EXP」
The tavern was quiet now. I heard Zoro sheathe his swords.
All the pirate guys were lying around, unconscious. The only ones still standing were us two.
I stretched my arms over my head and yawned.
I paused with my arms in the air. I looked around.
"Hm… hey, Zoro? Where did Nami go? Koby's gone too."
"I sent her off to do some self-reflection. Koby's helping."
"Oh. Okay."
My ear twitched.
Hah?
Shink!
I jerked my head to the side and lifted my hand to snatch Big Nose's floating arm. I thought I broke both of those already.
I turned around and looked down at him. I got him real good; the guy was all bruised and bloody and I really didn't think that he would be able to move this much when I left him on the floor. He was glaring at me, though I really didn't think he had enough energy to do much more than that.
I pouted.
"Do you seriously have a bigger bounty than me? That's pretty strange, right? I mean— hm?"
I stopped talking halfway through what I was saying. My eyes looked up as far as they could, and locked onto the edge of my hat.
"...Hey, Zoro?"
"Mm."
Does the brim of my hat look a bit messed up to you?"
He walked a bit closer and hummed.
"Yeah, there's a nick right at the edge."
"Ah."
X
CRASH!
I sent Big Nose's body parts flying so hard that they broke right through the walls of the place before slamming into the brick walls of the next building over. The guy slumped over— or at least, that's what I thought he did. It was tough to tell because of how he was all over the place.
"Hey. Pull yourself together. I wanna talk to you properly."
I was angry.
Big Nose coughed.
"Crazy fuckin—"
I found his crotch and stomped on it. He screamed but I didn't lift my foot until the pain forced him to bring all of his parts back together.
He was panting with his mouth open, his head drooped to the side uselessly, though he didn't take his eyes off me.
"Don't mess with my hat."
"Your… ha…"
Buggy's unfocused eyes trailed upward. They were stuck to the top of my head for a few seconds.
They widened. He seemed a little more alert.
"Shanks sent you, didn't he?"
I froze. I forced myself to relax and crouched down so that I could look at him at eye level.
"Oi. How do you know Shanks?"
He didn't answer me.
"I knew it," he said. "You have no business being in the East Blue. You're a New World pirate."
"..."
This guy knew stuff for sure, but he wasn't making sense. Shanks? New World?
"You—" I cut myself off. Big Nose passed out.
I frowned.
"Hey! Wake—"
"Captain."
I stood up properly and looked away from Big Nose.
"Hm?"
Zoro had a serious look on his face; he was really tense for some reason and he was eyeing me really strangely.
He turned his head away. I followed where he was looking.
Nami was standing on the other side of the street, hunched over with a really big bag in hand. Her eyes were wide and I could see sweat dripping down her chin.
My face was totally blank for a second, but then I put on a big smile!
"Hey! Nami! Where've you been?"
"H-hey…"
I started walking toward her. She wasn't moving.
I tilted my head to the side.
"Hm? Something wrong?"
She twitched. Nami grabbed her arm and looked away.
"Aren't you mad? For… you know."
I blinked.
For what?
Oh. Was she talking about her plan to ditch us here?
I laughed.
"Yeah! That pissed me off a lot!"
Nami took a step back. She kept flicking her attention between me and Zoro.
"But it's okay, though," I continued. "It looks like you're okay. I'm glad."
"Huh?"
I turned on my heel and waved Zoro over.
"Well, looks like we're done here! Let's go get Koby."
Zoro ambled toward me, one hand resting on the hilt of one of his swords and the other scratching his ear.
Nami pulled on my vest to stop me from leaving.
"Something wrong?" I asked.
She wouldn't look me in the eye. Her head was turned away.
"I, uh, need help with something. How about we cut a deal? One last time, lend me a hand — I promise it'll be quick! — and in exchange, I'll fix your hat. I heard you earlier. You sounded pretty… upset that Buggy damaged it."
I took a second to process what she said. I went bug-eyed.
"Ah! That's right! Aw, man, I can't go around with my hat like this; Yamato will make fun of me for sure!"
It was bad enough that I let it get cut when Shanks was relying on me to keep it safe for him, but if Yamato found out that I had been caught off guard in the East Blue of all places, she wouldn't let me live it down either. I could already hear her nagging voice telling me to take this seriously if I thought I could stand a chance against Kaido.
Pueh.
Gingerly, I pulled the hat off my head and handed it to her.
"Thanks!" I said. "What do I gotta do?"
She took the hat and popped it right back on my head.
"I'll don't have anything to fix it with right now, dummy. For now, follow me back to Buggy's ship. He has a bunch of the villagers' stuff and I told them I'd bring it all back to them."
I stared at her for a moment.
She ran into the villagers? When was this?
Ah, it must've been when Zoro said she went to go do "thinking" or whatever.
Right… I didn't even know that they were still around. They must've been having a pretty tough time, huh?
I looked to Zoro to see if he was thinking what I was thinking, but it didn't look like he was paying attention.
"I think I understand," I told Nami. "You act all mean, but you're actually nice, right?"
Her face was red.
"Huh? What the hell are you talking— nevermind. Just follow me to the ship, okay? It's a lot of stuff, and I'm not sure if I can grab all of it on my own at once."
"Okay!" I agreed easily. "Gotta grab something first, though."
She and Zoro stared at me curiously as I walked back to where Big Nose was lying like a sack of potatoes. He had a ponytail hanging off the back of his head. Convenient.
"Hey, Zoro, could you get this for me?"
I pulled him up a little and he kind of just hung there.
Nami crossed her arms.
"What do you mean—"
"Sure."
SHINK!
"Eeek!"
I brought Big Nose's unconscious, disembodied head up to eye level and nodded to myself.
"Mhm. Yeah. That's pretty creepy!"
Nami grabbed her chest and leaned forward.
"You scared the crap out of me! What do you need that for?"
"I have questions that he hasn't answered yet, so… he's gotta answer them. Yeah."
"..."
She never stopped staring at the head until we got to where we were going.
X
「You have found [Buggy's Treasure]! Would you like to transfer these items to your inventory?」
「Yes/No」
There were stars in my eyes. I heard Zoro whistle behind me. An actual pirate's treasure! There was so much of it. Yamato would be so angry if she found out that I found one of these before she did.
"So we just gotta bring all of this back to the villagers?" I asked.
Nami crossed her arms in front of her.
"No! Only what I tell you to bring. The rest is— they don't need all of it. Here. Hold this bag; I'll put stuff in it, you carry it."
「No」
"Okay."
Zoro and I waited for Nami to figure out what we were taking back to the village with us. Since it was really boring to wait without doing anything, I swivelled my head around and looked around the room for anything interesting.
"..."
My head stopped moving. I dropped the sack and Big Nose's head.
Zoro frowned at me.
"Oi. What are you…"
He trailed off. He watched me walk away in a trance toward the giant club thing lying flat in the middle of the room.
Nami noticed what was going on.
"Oh, that?" she said. "Yeah, I'm not sure what that's about either. Buggy seemed to be hanging onto it for some reason. Maybe you can ask him why once he wakes up."
"I think I know," Zoro muttered. "You sense it too, don't you, Captain? The aura surrounding that thing. It's not normal."
Of course I could sense it. I knew exactly what this was.
"It's Takeru," I told them.
Nami crossed her arms.
"Takeru?" she repeated. "Who's that?"
They didn't get it.
I picked Takeru up and held it over my shoulder. I ignored the choking and gasping noises from behind me.
"Takeru is this thing! Yamato's weapon."
"That thing's huge!" Nami commented uselessly. Of course it was huge.
"That Yamato person… just how strong is she?" Zoro asked me. The tone of his voice made it sound like he wasn't all there right now.
How strong was Yamato?
"..."
I looked deep into Zoro's eyes. My smile was showing lots of teeth.
"Super duper strong."
"Do you think Buggy might have taken it from her?" Nami asked.
"Not a chance." I shot that idea down right away. "Big Nose is a weakling. She definitely lost it when our dinghy got caught in that whirlpool that separated us."
"Whirlpool!?" Nami screamed.
Zoro scratched his chin.
"I'm surprised anyone found it. Something that heavy must've dropped straight to the bottom of the ocean."
"Forget that!" interrupted Nami. "You were hauling that thing around in a dinghy? How did you even float!?"
"..."
I thought about my answer for a second.
Ah, right!
I slammed my fist into the palm of my opposite hand.
"It was a really strong dinghy—"
"That's not how boats work! Be serious!"
"The woman's got a point, though," Zoro muttered. "We're gonna want to take that thing back to your friend, right? We'll need a vessel that can actually carry it."
"I mean, we can just use the boat that we were—"
"No."
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes.
"..."
Something came to me.
"I know! Let's take Big Nose's ship!"
Zoro scratched his chin.
"Hm… I mean, sure, why not? It's not like he's using it."
Nami raised a brow at us.
"And do either of you actually know how to make it go anywhere? It's not a rowboat, you know."
About that…
I marched up to Nami and grabbed her by the arms. She let out a high-pitched squeak that lasted for half a second.
"Nami. You're funny. Join my crew!"
"What do you mean I'm funny, you jerk!"
She pulled away. I chuckled and let her go.
Nami looked like she wanted to say something. Or was it that she didn't know what to say? I didn't know.
I waited. Zoro must've been waiting too. He was pretty quiet, watching us.
"...Drop it for now, will you? Let's get those villagers back on track, first."
"Shishishi. Sure thing!"
"Leave that head here."
"What? I just thought—"
"Leave it."
"Okay."
X
Nami took us to a place that was really out of the way. I thought there would be no one here at first, but slowly, one person at a time, a whole crowd appeared in front of us. A town's worth of people, probably. They were looking at us nervously.
"Nami-san! Zoro-san! Luffy-san!"
Koby ran up to us. I waved at him happily.
"Koby! How are you? I heard that you were helping Nami.
He didn't really seem to understand what I was talking about, but he didn't think too hard about it.
"Yeah, well uh… that aside, what happened to Buggy?"
Zoro grinned. I flexed my arm.
"I took his head!"
Everyone in the crowd started whispering to each other. A strange old man walked to the front of the group with a big frown on his face.
"Lass… who might your friends be?"
She was looking at me with a complicated look on her face. We probably wanted to move things along so that we could give these people their stuff, so I decided to help her with her words.
"We're pirates!"
Zoro's eyes widened for a second, then he laughed.
Nami punched me in the shoulder over and over again. It didn't hurt, but she was making a scary face.
"Stop doing that! You did it again! Why did you do it again!"
Ah?
There was a gun pointed at my head.
"Eek!"
I heard Koby shout. A bunch of guys were grabbing him to stop him from moving.
"You betrayed our trust, girl!" the old man shouted. "You're with these fellas, ain't ya? You lot just wanted to keep all the wealth for yourselves!"
I blinked and turned to Nami.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"Wait a second!" she begged. Using what strength she had, she dragged the two bags that Zoro and I brought and left them where everyone could see them. "Here. It's what Buggy took from you. We came here to give it back like I said I would."
The old man's arm was shaky, slowly the gun was lowered.
"You're serious. Are you really pirates?"
The people holding Koby in place let him go. He ran up to us.
"Uhuh," I answered, nodding my head.
"..."
The old man closed his eyes and bowed his head.
"I'm sorry. The fact of the matter is that you've helped us, pirates or not. I'm thankful. We're thankful. There's nothing much that we have to offer, I'm afraid, but if you wish—"
"Nah, we don't need anything!" Nami answered, smiling. I wish we could stay to help you rebuild, but we have places to be."
The old man sighed. I could hear the cheers of relief from all the people behind him.
"It's no issue at all. I wish you good luck in your travels, pirates."
"Coo! Coo! Coo!"
"..."
We all looked up.
A bird was flying in circles overhead. A really recognizable one, too: it was wearing its own uniform and seemed to be carrying a package.
Nami lifted her arm: a perch for the bird to land.
"The news coo! Has it been coming often?"
The old man seemed caught off guard.
"Not once since that pirate crew came here. Maybe because they're gone, it thinks its safe again?"
Nami tossed it a small coin. The bird dropped a newspaper and it flew off.
"Here," she said, giving the paper a once-over as she brought it over to the old man. "After being left in the dark for so long, this one's on me. You should—"
She didn't even finish her sentence. Seemingly out of nowhere, she tore off the first page of the paper and held it in a balled fist.
Nami stopped moving. It was kind of worrying.
"...Nami?" I called out to her carefully. I turned to Zoro and Koby, but they didn't seem to know what was going on either.
"Hey, Luffy," she started in a soft voice. "How about we cut a deal."
Something was off. What did she see in that paper?
"Sure?" I answered. I didn't know what else to say.
To me, she didn't look like the Nami that I knew at all right now.
It was her eyes. If even for just a second, it felt like she was staring at me more intensely than she ever had before. I didn't know how to describe it. She just wasn't all there. She was off in her own head thinking about something. I just didn't know what.
"I'll be your navigator. In exchange… I want you to do something for me."
