9. Leaving Baratie
I took a glance at the survivors of the Krieg Pirates, a paltry six regulars and Gin with an absolute BEAUTY of a shiner on his right eye, all seven of them just as knocked out as their captain and I shook my head as I said "Krieg REALLY should have just taken the food and left."
Luffy's stomach let out a loud roar and he laughed as he said "Speaking of food, I could really do with some meat right now!"
"Then come inside and let us make a plate for you Chore Boy." One of the chefs said with a grin earning a shout of happiness from Luffy as he ran inside.
I smirked at his eagerness but didn't follow him inside. Instead, I took a series of leaps up and over the Baratie then opened my glider to head back to the Merry. It was time we learned why Nami had tried to run away.
Story Start: The Baratie
Flying over the water with my glider, I made for the Going Merry. As I approached, I saw that Nami was still secured to her main mast. As I came down for a landing in front of her, she raised her head up and asked a muffled question behind her gag.
I walked over and as gently as possible began peeling the tape off of her mouth as I said "Yeah, the fighting's all done. Luffy, Usopp, and I took care of the Krieg Pirates."
Nami winced as the tape was removed then asked "Just you three? What about Zoro?"
A frown formed on my face as I pulled out my knife and flicked it open as I said "He's recovering from getting stabbed over the heart then slashed on the torso. Mr. 'Slice A Mountain In Half Before Breakfast' Dracule 'Hawkeye' Mihawk apparently managed to track down the Krieg Pirates all the way from the Grand Line to the Baratie and finished the job he started of destroying all of the ships of the Krieg Armada. Most likely explanation for how he found them was that he had a lock on their signatures and has an insane range when it comes to his Observation Haki. Zoro apparently had the absolutely brilliant idea to challenge him to a duel. I got back just in time to watch Mihawk stab him over the heart with this tiny dagger. Dumbass that he was, Zoro didn't pull back even with a dagger in his chest and Mihawk was evidently impressed enough to let him try one last time against his actual weapon."
As I had been talking, I had been cutting Nami free, first cutting the three strips that kept her pinned to the mast, then the tape wrapped around her shins. Once that tape was pulled off of her legs, I gently turned her around to cut the tape binding her arms behind her back as I continued "Zoro got two of his blades shattered and a cut across his torso for his trouble. Then the monumental idiot sheathed his remaining sword and turned around to let Mihawk slash AGAIN, claiming that 'Scars on the back are a swordsman's shame'. Mihawk agreed with the sentiment, and made to give him another slash but I stepped in at that point."
Nami stared at me over her shoulder in amazement and asked incredulously "You took on The World's Strongest Swordsman and won?!"
I let out a bark of laughter as I pulled the tape away from her arms and said "HAH! It was hardly some great clash between Warriors! I just kept him from swinging his sword one last time is all. You'd think Zoro would be grateful that I kept him from being carved like a turkey but nope, both he and Luffy were furious I'd 'interfered' in the fight even though Zoro's one remaining blade was sheathed and he was just standing there completely defenseless. Idiot didn't even want me sewing up his wounds. Had to threaten to suck all of the air out of his lungs and patch him up while he was knocked out in order to let me tend to him."
"Somehow that doesn't surprise me." Nami said, rubbing at her arms. Turning fully around, she looked up at me with narrowed eyes and said "By the way, you know that if you had searched me more 'thoroughly' earlier I would have throttled you, logia or not, right?"
I snorted in amusement and said "Nami, if there's two things I am, it's genre savvy, and aware of the fact that if a woman gets pissed she can do things that defy a universe's laws of reality." My expression then turned contemplative as I continued "That said, I HAVE seen plenty of examples where people REALLY should have been more thorough when searching prisoners or enemy combatants. There was even one manga where a girl hid two pokeballs by making them look like they were her breasts. Green was definitely an...interesting character."
Nami stared at me oddly for a moment before she shook her head and said "I don't know what these 'pokeballs' are, and at the moment, I don't really care. Just tell me where you left my gear."
"Basket on the kitchen table." I said and Nami quickly headed for said kitchen, taking the stairs two at a time.
As I had been speaking, the wind around us had been gently pushing Merry through the four hundred feet of ocean seperating us from the Baratie. As Nami made her way up the stairs, the Merry reached the dock, a small whirlwind appeared, compressing in between the two ships in order to keep Merry from bumping into Baratie while at the same time turning her ninety degrees. I jumped out at that point and quickly tied her off, using wind to launch the necessary lines off of Merry's deck and into my hands.
Nami came back out while I was tying the last line and hopped over Merry's railing to land next to me. Straightening up from her partial crouch to absorb the landing, she sighed and said "Well, guess we should get this over with. I just hope Luffy lets me keep sailing with you guys once everything is said and done."
"Don't worry, if what's going on with you is anything like what I think it is then Luffy should be more than willing to both help you and keep you on as a crew member." I said. At Nami's startled look, I shrugged and elaborated "Genre Savvy remember? This has all the hallmarks of a 'forced to work for the other side' scenario."
Nami stared at me with her startled look for a few more seconds before she shook her head and said "Right, guy sent into a to him fictional world when he died, you've probably got a mental checklist of tropes and clichés that you keep an eye out for..."
I smirked at her but didn't say anything, instead turning and walking for the closest dining room door. Nami shook her head but quickly followed, quickly catching up then matching pace with me so that way we entered the dining room side by side.
To the surprise of no one who had seen him around a woman, Sanji immediately noticed our entrance. A moment later, he was in front of Nami in a server's bow, somehow with a colorful drink on a serving dish that he did NOT have on him a moment before and stated "Lady Nami, when your Captain stated that you were being brought back from your ship I took the liberty to make you this refreshing drink. I hope you find it as pleasing as you are beautiful."
Nami accepted the drink with an admittedly nice smile and a word of thanks. Sanji did a noodle dance for a moment in pleasure before he pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the table where the rest of the crew and the Bounty Hunter Duo were seated and said "There is a pitcher of Applewood Julep on the table for you and the rest Matthew, along with a pitcher of water as well."
I nodded and said "Thanks Sanji."
As Nami and I walked over to the table to join the others, most of them looked at her with angry looks. Luffy though just looked disappointed. Nami paused for a moment with a small swallow but I kept her moving with a hand on her back between her shoulder blades. Once we were at the table, I nudged her into one of the two empty seats then sat down next to her.
As soon as I sat down I grabbed the metal pitcher in the middle of the table (there was a second pitcher that was clear and thus clearly the water pitcher) and poured myself a shot of Julep, throwing it back like it was Whiskey. A moment later, I poured another shot along with a regular glass of water. Taking a big gulp of that as well, I set down my glass and said "Alright, I know you guys are mad at Nami, and I'll admit, I was pretty pissed as well after that stunt she tried pulling. However, things are evidently more complex than we thought so please give her a chance to explain what's going on before you judge her alright?"
It should NOT have surprised me, but fellow story teller that he was, Usopp immediately leaned forward with his look of anger becoming one of concern as he asked "Did you receive an urgent message from home that you couldn't let us know about or has this been an ongoing issue since before you joined Luffy and Zoro?"
It certainly surprised everyone else, all of the other boys looking at him incredulously. Having already had someone else guess what was wrong before, Nami quickly recovered and said "Um, ongoing issue." Shaking her head, she continued, entering the 'backstory of her character arc', as I couldn't help but think her story as.
She and her 'sister' Nojiko being adopted by a Marine Captain named Bellemere after finding them in a desolate town. Living on Conomi Island, more specifically, a tangerine farm at Cocoyasi Village. Being an incredible cartographer even when she was young and dreaming of one day making a map of the world.
But then, tragedy strikes, a group of fishmen led by a saw toothed shark named Arlong invading the islands, forcing people to either pay the pirates or be killed. Never having had a lot of money, Bellemere can't pay for both her and her daughters and so pays for Nami and Nojiko, and is immediately killed by Arlong in front of the two. Arlong discovering Nami's map making skills and immediately claiming her for his own needs. A deal is soon struck, Cocoyasi Village to be handed over to Nami in return for 100 Million Beris, an amount five times greater than the pirate's own bounty of 20 million.
However, the 100 million isn't the only amount Nami has to pay. There is still a 'living tax' that everyone under Arlong's thumb must periodically pay or be killed off. The day of the next collection is soon approaching and even Nami must pay this tax or another member of her home village would be killed in her stead. Apparently, she's far too valuable for Arlong to kill, but that just means he has a way to ensure she doesn't pull a runner and not return to the islands during one of her trips, you know, just in case she decides for some reason to stop trying to collect the money to pay him for the village...
As Nami finished explaining, I sighed and picked up my shot glass and threw back my julep. Setting it down on the table with a soft 'clink', I leaned back and said "Luffy, you may be the Captain but if our next destination isn't this Arlong Park place to make fish sticks out of these bastards then I'm afraid I'm going to have to temporarily leave this crew. I'll meet back up with you guys at Loguetown before you head into the Grand Line."
None of the others spoke, but I could tell that they agreed with that sentiment. Zoro even idly flicked Wado Ichimonji an inch out of its sheath with an eager light in his eyes.
Luffy gave a quick glance at me at that statement but turned his attention back to Nami as he asked "Why didn't you tell us any of this before Nami?"
Nami let out a bitter laugh and said "Because I didn't want my friends to be killed. Arlong can't be defeated. Anyone who tries just winds up dead. Only I've survived trying and that's because I'm both useful to him and he finds it amusing. And believe me, I've tried to kill him. Daggers, guns, hell, I even managed to get my hands on some pufferfish poison. He called it delicious!"
I felt a brief flash of conflict in the totally not eavesdropping Sanji with my Observation Haki at the mention of poison. Me and Zoro flicked our eyes towards him but a moment later we turned our gazes to Luffy to see what our Captain would do.
After twenty seconds of silence, Luffy asked "Matt, can you make Merry go faster than normal with your wind?"
"I can. I'll have to be careful not to damage her sails but I should be able to at least double her speed, maybe even triple it." I stated before frowning and glancing at the Bounty Hunter Duo as I said "Their ship on the other hand, I'm not so sure about. It's a lot smaller so I'm not sure if it'll be able to handle the amount of force I'd be projecting, both on its sail, and the bow that the water would be pushing against harder than normal from the increased speed." I glanced up in thought and said "I might be able to just lift it out of the water on a cushion of air and we can tow it that way but that'd require a good bit of multitasking for however long it takes us to get there. Unfortunately, given how much bigger and thus heavier Merry is, never mind her cargo, I don't want to try doing the same and risk breaking her hull, or worse, her keel if I can't actually keep her up for the whole journey."
I turned my gaze back to the pair and said "That's assuming of course that the two of you will be joining us for this journey. If we're splitting up here then obviously that wouldn't be a concern."
As everyone at the table looked towards them in question, Johnny and Yosaku traded a speaking look with each other for twenty seconds, faces twitching in short lived expressions of narrowing eyes, eyes flicked to one side or another, and raising eyebrows. In my opinion it was a rather impressive display of how in sync the pair were.
At the end of those twenty seconds though the pair nodded together before looking back at me and said together "We're in." Johnny then tacked on and said "Just let us move our gear from our boat to the Merry so that way if you accidentally drop it we won't lose our stuff."
I nodded at that and then looked at Luffy as he stood up and cracked his knuckles as he said "Good. I want to get there as soon as possible to kick this Arlong's ass for putting Nami through all of that."
Nami had been in a bit of shock when Luffy asked me if I could augment Merry's speed. But now she went right into panic as she said "You can't, he'll kill you guys!"
"He's welcome to try." Luffy said darkly.
Zoro nodded with an eager grin as he stood up and said "I never fought a fishman before, could be fun."
"All else fails, I can drop a tornado on his base and level the place, let all of the shrapnel shred them." I stated, pouring myself one last cup of julep and throwing it back before I stood up. I then turned to where Sanji had been watching and gestured at the pitcher as I asked "Hey Sanji, do you mind if I take that with me for a moment? I'm pretty sure I saw a couple of thermoses in Merry's kitchen."
"Just make sure to bring the pitcher back." Sanji stated with a wave of his hand.
I nodded and picked up the pitcher before I gestured for the Bounty Hunter Duo to follow me. Soon as I had my little vice stored I was going to see if I could actually lift the pair's boat out of the water and keep it in the air without having to make a twister to do it.
Fifteen minutes later, I was helping Yosaku lift up the pair's cold box up to Johnny who grunted as he brought it over the Merry's railing, setting it down with a gust of exhaled air as he said "That was heavy."
As Yosaku leapt up to help him move it away from the railing the blue coated bounty hunter asked "Are you sure we should have left the sail on the ship?"
I gave a dismissive wave and said "There's no real point in taking it down since if this works we'll be using a towing line instead of pushing her from behind to let her keep up with Merry so it'll be furled anyway." I then frowned and asked "By the way, what's her name?"
Their little ship had never come up in any of the discussions so I had never bothered to ask the pair what they had named it, or indeed if they even HAD named it.
"We call her the Marlin." Johnny stated.
I nodded at that and walked over to the ship, moving to her prow, stepping off the deck and hanging in the air to do so without boarding her. Placing my hand on her prow, I said softly "If you can hear me, try not to freak out during this Marlin, I don't want to accidentally drop you if I pick up on any kind of panicked emotion with my Observation Haki."
Did I feel silly talking to a little ship roughly a quarter the size of the Going Merry? Just a bit, but this world was a One Piece world, ship spirits were a VERY real thing here. Case in point, my Observation Haki pinged at something under my hand changing just the slightest bit then it had been before, like the wood was put under just the slightest bit of pressure.
Closing my eyes, I took in a deep breath then opened them on the exhale. As my eyes opened, wind began to blow out of the bottom of my feet. First it was just a gentle breeze that formed ripples in the waves of the ocean. But that breeze began steadily getting stronger as I pushed more and more air into the water. Soon a cavity formed in the water beneath me as the water was forced back, first straight down, then expanding forwards until the Marlin was resting in only about three feet of water.
I took another deep breath then 'lifted' the air pocket upwards. As it rose, it pushed the water between it and the Marlin away. When I felt her keel touch the air pocket, I folded it inwards so that way the entire bottom of the hull was being supported. I paused for a moment, critically eyeing the Marlin to see if it would fall through the four foot thick air cushion. When it remained level for a full minute, I carefully lifted the air cushion up into the air, floating upwards with it until I was twenty feet over the water.
I felt a tinge of something that almost felt like unease in my Observation Haki from Marlin but since it wasn't actually the sharp 'twang' of outright alarm it thankfully didn't break my conversation. Once I felt we were high enough, I reached into the Marling for the coil of rope we had left at her bow and then floated backwards. Once the rope was taut, I began adding more and more layers to the air cushion, turning it into a rather large balloon without the skin. Once the cushion was big enough that I felt it could take the weight of the Marlin I carefully 'locked' the shape of the outer layer of the cushion configuration and then began to slowly begin vibrating the air molecules in the inner layer. Once I had a good heat shimmer going due to the friction of the molecules rubbing against each other, I slowly began removing my mental 'hands' from the construct, ready to 'snatch' it again if it began to drop.
Thankfully for my nerves, while the Marlin bobbed a little, once all of the parts of the outer layer was 'released' from my direct control it remained at a consistent height over the water. Letting out a sigh, I wiped at the nervous sweat on my forehead and said "SO glad that worked."
Now came the real test. It was all well and good to get Marlin out of the water and into the air, but now I had to make sure that we could actually tow her like this without tipping her over the cushion. Drifting backwards, I began to pull Marlin through the air, slowly at first, barely even a walking pace, but after roughly twenty seconds, I began increasing the speed of my flight until I was going roughly 20 miles per hour in an ever expanding circle come square around the Baratie which is what I felt that I would be able to get Merry going with the wind without damaging her sails and masts. (Oh sorry, I meant 18 knots, still getting used to thinking in naval terms...)
Twenty minutes later, I brought the Marlin to rest behind Merry. I patted Marlin's prow before I secured the tow line to Merry in the same manner as when we towed Marlin to the Baratie almost a week ago. That done, I moved up and over to land on Merry's main deck where everyone, including Sanji, and for some reason Gin was standing.
I gave Gin a bemused look (getting a flat one back) but then shook my head saving my questions for later as I gave Luffy a proper palm outwards naval salute and said "Testing of towing the Marlin complete Captain, she is secured to Merry and we can leave on your order."
Luffy nodded and said "Good, then let's cast off, the sooner we get back to Nami's home island, the sooner I get to punch Arlong's lights out."
"Aye Captain!" Everyone, including Gin answered and Nami immediately began barking orders even as Zoro quickly hopped back to the Baratie's deck to untie her lines before shoving Merry away, quickly hopping back aboard before she could drift too far.
As that happened, the wind began steadily picking up and as soon as Zoro was aboard the wind pushed Merry's bow out to sea and more wind at her stern pushed her even further from the Baratie. As we drifted away, the chefs that had come out to see us off began calling out farewells, Zeff watching stoically. Well, he had tears in his eyes but they weren't falling unlike with the rest of the chefs (Yes, even Patty and Carne) so I wasn't going to call him out on it. Sanji waved from the rigging at them with tears in his own eyes as he said his own farewells.
When we were a thousand feet from the Baratie and pointed the right way, Nami nodded at me and I nodded back. Grinning, I formed a two foot thick wedge of solid air at Merry's bow in order to help her better handle what was about to happen and rubbed my hands eagerly before I called out loudly "NOW HEAR THIS! ALL HANDS, SECURE LIFE LINES AND PREPARE FOR MAXIMUM SPEED!"
As I spoke, wind threw the lines that were normally only used during storms at everyone else and they were quick to tie them around their waists. (Even Luffy) The moment the last line was secured Merry's sails snapped to full as the wind shifted from pushing her stern to the sails themselves and picked up speed, steadily growing to the point where it sounded like there was an industrial fan right behind us.
We reached Merry's 'normal' max speed of 6 knots within thirty seconds, then we kept going faster. Within three minutes the wind was pushing Merry at a steady clip of 18 knots and I called out over the wind "THIS IS AS FAST AS I'M WILLING TO TAKE HER CAPTAIN!"
"TRUST ME, THIS IS JUST FINE!" Nami shouted back before she muttered to herself low enough that I only heard it thanks to feeling the vibrations of her voice with my air sense "Wish I had him years ago, I'd never have had to worry about avoiding dead spots."
I let out a snort at that while Luffy gave me a thumb's up from where he was seated on Merry's figurehead, hand needlessly keeping his straw hat on his head. (I would NEVER blow that off considering just who it had belonged to before) Actually...
A gust of wind blew down into the men's quarters before coming right back out with my Stetson and I snatched it out of the air placing it on my head with a grin before I crouched my knees and 'leapt' upwards, past Usopp in the crow's nest, straight to the top of Merry's main mast. 'Landing', I stood at Merry's tallest point with crossed arms as the wind continued steadily pushing us to our next fight.
I could hardly wait.
END
