Disclaimer: One Piece doesn't belong to me. This writing does, however.
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"You can't go."
Outstretched hands blocked his path. The boy lifted up his chin, and looked at the girl. A smile danced upon his silent face.
He waited.
"…you can't go."
She persisted, shaking arms refusing to lower. She willed a reason, any reason to come to her. An insult, an order, a prayer. Anything that could stop him.
But she couldn't find the words. Not for this. Not for him.
She squeezed out a last plea.
"…please…"
He smiled – that god-damned smile of his – and tilted his head, just so.
"I am going, Nami."
"I said no, damn it!"
The fiery navigator exploded, fists angrily snatching up her captain's cloak.
"You stupid idiot! Do you know how many ships there are? Do you have ANY idea how long the marines have prepared this? Want me to recite every weapon they set, just for you?! Listen to me for once, you god-damned fool!"
Her shrieks rang across the murky horizon. No echoes bothered to come back to her.
She trembled in the cold sunlight.
Luffy - her captain, her friend, her king – stared right back into her eyes, unblinking.
"………"
Her fists loosened. Luffy gently pushed back her hands, and brushed past his frozen navigator.
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If she grab onto him now-
If she grab now, and don't let go… never let go… then, maybe then…
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"Good bye Nami! It was fun!"
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The boy walked away, his hands waving high in the azure skies.
Nami could only choke back her hot tears.
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Her captain's footsteps faded out of distance.
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The Pirate King
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[come with me!]
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you tempted.
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[lets sail together!]
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you dreamed.
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[I'm going to be the Pirate King. And I want you as my navigator. No one else!]
Nami clenched her teeth, and held desperately onto the reign of her furious rampaging rage. Her hands bleed, endurance's thin thread cutting deeply into her in an attempt to break free.
She wanted to scream.
Instead, Nami, Bellmale's daughter, Nojiko's sister, Pirate King's navigator, stood her ground.
And stared.
Sanji was standing behind her.
His usual cigarette hung loosely between his teeth. But the little life he managed to give it died as quickly as it was given in this unstoppable thunderstorm.
He was silent. He hadn't offered her a shelter again, after his first attempt more than two hours ago.
He refused to look, eyes darting around everywhere except for where it mattered. His fists kept clenching and unclenching, slender legs shuffling this way and that - but he never once opened his mouth again. As if he dared not let his voice out; as if he was afraid of what he may say, or do; as if once he let one restraint go all reason will burst up into ashes and there will be no stopping of-
Nami ignored him, as well as the soundless drops that flowed fluidly down his cheekbones then onto the suit. Drip, drip. Rain. Just rain.
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She had never known what he was thinking, truth to be told.
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[I think I'll be going now.]
He announced, getting up from his bedside vigil.
Sanji dropped his cigarette, swore, and quickly checked the floorboard for any sign of damage. A small spark could mean the death of all aboard on the ocean.
[Shit! God damn it! ……Where the hell do you think you're going? You're not going anywhere like that!]
She had kept quiet, somehow anticipating in dread what her captain will say next.
[Going to die, of course.]
She slammed her Climatech hard into his skull, sharp end first. Her captain fell face flat onto the floor, effectively knocking himself out. Knowing didn't mean she had to agree with it.
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Always following his emotions. Sure, it sounded grand, so pure, so valiant, so 'right'
But she knew that that would never work. Reality was never so soft. Someone had to pull him back down, onto hard, solid reality – before he floated away, high into the clouds.
- like an angel with wings
And here he was, on solid ground, as real as he could get - as she'd always secretly imagined in her wildest fantasies.
With solid clasps around his limbs to hold him down.
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Nami wanted to cry.
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The storm was slamming her whole body against the cobblestone pavement.
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[You made Nami-san cry.]
[Yeah.]
Nami had seen enough from her ten-year voyage with them to recognize Sanji's current stance as a battle stance. She stayed still, from her patch of shadow behind the mandarin trees.
[…and you're just going to walk out like that?]
[Sorry, Sanji. I wanted to see your restaurant in All-Blue to completion too.]
[That's not what I'm on about!!]
Sanji swore a colorful string of fowl words. Luffy tilted his head in vague interest, his senses dulled from too many years on sea. One gets to hear language far worse than what his cook was handling now, when you've been out on see for so long.
[And I'm sorry for leaving you too.]
[Leaving me? Leaving ME! You're leaving… you're leaving the whole god damned ship! The Crew! What are you going to say to Usopp? Or Chopper? What happens when he returns? That kid practically worships you, and… God damn it, Say something!]
Then Luffy stopped. The first sign of hesitation since the start of this all, four month… No. Ten years ago.
[I wish we had the chance to build Going-Merry again. It would have been nice, doing a circuit on our old ship. With just our old crew.]
Then he smiled, a wide toothy grin – just like when he first talked of his dream.
[It would have been nice, sitting on that lamb-headpiece again.]
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Don't smile like that.
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Then Sanji attacked. A wild, desperate movement, going straight for the stomach, in hopes of knocking him out-
[Too soft, Sanji. You have to go for the head, or the neck, or maybe even the heart, if you want to stop me.]
Luffy laughed, jumping back. Using rebound, he gutted Sanji straight into the mandarin trees.
[You…!]
Sanji swore, trying to get up – but I could see him gasping for air, eyes starting to close…
Then Luffy turned. His straw hat was in the way for me to see his face. In the way of everything, always.
[I have no regrets.]
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Why couldn't he reason?
Why couldn't he have made them understand?
Why even try?
No. Even if there were thousands of millions of reason to justify this, she would not have heard of it. Could not hear of it.
Luffy shouldn't die. Couldn't die. That was the rule. No matter what happens, no matter what happens, Monkey D. Luffy just COULD NOT die.
[But people die.]
Ebony eyes gleamed from under the straw hat.
She crushed the compass in her hand. Throwing the offending instrument from her bleeding fist, she swallowed her screaming rage.
As if that wasn't enough, she slammed her fists down onto the rail. It broke into splinters of wood, as did her fist. She couldn't even make it out clearly anymore, held only inches away from her chest – among all the blood and rain.
It distracted her enough from the numbing feeling inside of her. She wasn't sure if she was even breathing anymore.
And then…
And then…
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[and sorry about the mandarin trees, Nami. Didn't mean to crash Sanji into it. But you can fix it alright, right?]
Nami walked out from her hiding place, not even bothering to ask how he'd known.
[So you're going.]
[Yeah.]
[…Go then. Why are you standing there? If you've decided, then just, go!]
[Thank you for the World Map, Nami.]
[…I didn't make them for you.]
[I know. But I got to use it, free of charge.]
[…Go.]
Her voice was breaking. She silently lifted up her arms, pointing his way off.
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And he turned around…
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"Don't…"
A prayer, on the verge of insanity.
"Don't do this to me…"
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The storm had continued. But the crowd hadn't thinned at all – if anything, it had tripled throughout the violent howl of the wind, desperately clutching onto their rain clothes but never wavering their eyes from the Pirate King, lest they miss The Execution of their lifetime.
The long list of charges had been read out. Most of them ridiculous – Nami couldn't fathom for the world how they had managed to get in [rape, pillage and plunder] in one sentence with Luffy. [Aiding Crocodile in his Alabasta upheaval]? When did THAT happen? Wonder how Vivi's doing. Haven't visited her in years. They should drop by Skypia sometime too. Before they run out of her gold. Have to collect some more dials. Chopper has to visit Norland again sometime too. And give a visit to that long-
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Then he looked up.
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It would have been impossible, given the distance, but he seemed to survey the scene in front of him with a wide sweep then almost immediately found them. Locking his eyes with hers, he smiled.
And the blade crashed down.
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Nami couldn't hear anything.
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Screaming
Screaming
Was that what they were doing? All around her, mouths gaping wide apart
Not a whisper reaching her ears
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Nami couldn't feel anything.
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Echoes of their shattering booms slamming into her in tsunamis of vibration
Pushing into her, Pulling against her Tripping over her in attempt to get closer to-
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She was dimly aware of Sanji's bloodcurdling scream from behind her.
She could dimly make out his blurred form, charging forward in a blur of speed into the mad crowd.
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For the shell of a man they had dared not rescue.
Could not rescue.
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A shell of a smile played upon her lips.
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The man himself, they could not disobey - no matter how much they wish against it, beg against it-
But now he is dead.
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They were free.
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Digging hard onto her toes – dashing forward with weapon ready in hand-
Nami laughed, crying.
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The crowd around her roared into life.
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