SOL INVICTUS

Chapter Four: Shh, Just Let It Happen

Luffy considered the strips of fabric in her hands.

She hated bindings. Hated them, hated them, hated them. And bras too. The only reason she'd worn bindings in the first place was because Makino and Mayor and Gramps and Ace had made such a big deal over it back on Foosha.

But… none of them were here now.

"Shishishishi… I'm free! No more constriction!"

And so it came to pass that Monkey D. Luffy would never wear bras again.

Not even during fight scenes.

Thousands of miles away and thousands of miles apart, a collection of diverse people experienced incongruous shivers of dread lancing down their spines.

In response, one smacked a cane against a desk. One dropped a glass cup. One snatched up a sake bottle and guzzled it down. One bit a cigarette in half and cocked a rifle. One popped a blood vessel and burnt toast to molten ashes. One adjusted white gloves and glared savagely at nothing. One faced the East with a dark scowl. One crumpled an entire building to its foundations with a furious punch. One smiled grimly and gripped both a sword hilt and a mug.

The only connection they shared was a certain bond with a certain girl.

And none would understand until they saw the new bounty posters a month from now.

"Zoro, I'm hungry. Let me eat!"

"No," he snapped, annoyed. "You said not to let you eat for another hour, remember?"

"I take it back, I don't know what I was thinking! Zooooroooo, feed meeee..."

He was unimpressed. "You were thinking about how to make our food supplies last, that's what. If I can last nine days, you can last four hours."

"But... I'm so hungry…" Luffy whined. She started to sniff and rub at her nose. "You're so mean!"

"H-hey, are you crying?"

"No!" she protested, pressing her palms against her teary eyes. "I'm not! I'm not crying!"

Zoro's hands reached out in a decidedly panicked way, though if later asked, he would never admit to doing something so pathetic as hand fluttering. "What the hell? Stop it! How could you be crying about something like this? I'll give you meat, so stop crying!"

"I'm not crying," she cried, reaching out and punching him in the gut. He wheezed in shock. "I'm not a crybaby, so I'm not crying! And that's that!"

"Fine, you're not crying," the swordsman groaned. He gripped his aching abdomen with an arm and scowled. "Fucking hell, see if I care anymore..."

But then teary eyed Luffy took the meat he offered – grinning at him in that way that she had – and he felt the pain alleviate, just a little bit.

Occasionally, Zoro remembered the feel of her soft lips against his parched mouth and idly thought about her proclamation of 'wanting him'. He knew what she meant now, but he didn't think he would complain if she followed up the way he had initially interpreted it... because Luffy, he soon learned, was a very tactile person. She loved to touch. Nothing sexual, of course, because the girl was as sexual as she was polite – that was, not at all. A shame, but it didn't affect his goal at all, so he didn't really care either.

Still it was baffling to him how much Luffy loved to touch. She would constantly grab his arm, or lean against his back, or drape herself over his shoulders, or tangle their legs together, or curl into his side like a cat, or any other number of things that involved skin contact.

Zoro himself was the opposite. His hands were—

He was...

Well, he normally didn't like to be touched in this way, and that was the long and the short of it. He was fine with the brisk movements of a quick fuck or the glancing blows of a good fight, but something like this, colored with real affection, made him uncomfortable. It was too soft and too fond, and he hated it.

Didn't he? Hadn't he thought it—

No. No, he definitely hated it. Anything else was unacceptable.

Eventually though, he learned to just let Luffy do as she liked. There was no harm to it, after all, and she was like a tiny furnace. That entire lazy week, the two of them drifted in a southwesterly direction. It was... pleasant.

But he did not doubt that the moment she came between him and his dream, he would invoke their promise without hesitation.

"Look! It's a bird."

Zoro glanced to the sky in disinterest and grunted, "So?"

"It's really, really, huge. A magic mystery bird!"

It didn't look all that huge from over here, but maybe the view from the bow was better. "And?" It wasn't like they'd need to eat it. They had supplies enough for a week or two, so he wasn't worried about starving yet.

"And we're going to follow it!"

He sighed. Luffy and her whims. "You're the captain. Do what you want."

"Awesome, start paddling," she laughed.

"What."

"'Cause I'm the captain, right? You just said so," Luffy told him, grinning cheerily. Zoro glared at her, entirely unamused. "Think of it as training. My gramps says if you slack off for too long, your muscles will become jello!"

"What about you then?"

"I'm rubber. I'm different, hehe."

He kept glaring at her as he slowly picked up the two paddles and started working his shoulders.

She continued to grin, and chirped, "Don't be angry, Zoro. You'll get to fight a lot on the next island we land on."

"Really," he deadpanned. It wasn't so much a question as a dubious statement, but that didn't seem to register with her. Sometimes he wondered whether she was really just that dense or if she was willfully ignoring everything that was not made obvious... and some things that were.

"Yup! I promise."

Well, if she promised.

Zoro allowed a smirk to curve his lips as he set to paddling steadily behind that stupid bird.

"Stop! Stop the boat!"

"The boat over there, stop!"

Luffy saw Zoro glancing at her for instruction, and she scrunched her nose. She didn't really like these guys; they were annoying, and she didn't really see the point of them, but she couldn't exactly leave them to drown.

"Don't slow down," she told her first mate. "I'll take care of this."

"We said sto—!"

Luffy stretched out and grabbed two of the goons with one hand and the third one with her other... And then she smashed their heads together and dropped them on the deck. "There. All taken care of."

Zoro pressed his lips together and looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Was that really necessary?"

Luffy gestured at the hat on one of the men. "Pirates. They'd have tried to make us stop, and then we'd lose the mystery bird."

"Pirates, huh? Recognize the sign?"

She gave a noncommittal shrug. "No one important."

"Hm. Wonder why they were drifting in the middle of ocean."

She stuck her tongue out. "I bet they were tricked by a pretty girl who pretended to be half dead to steal their treasure or something. And then she sank their dinghy by directing them into a storm."

"That sounds plausible," Zoro snarked back sarcastically.

"Ho? How about that, the bird actually got us to solid land."

"I said so, didn't I? It's a magic mystery bird!" Luffy cheered, bouncing off their little fishing boat and onto the wooden docks.

"Yeah, yeah..." Zoro threw her two ropes and she hooked them to a couple of nearby cleats. When she was finished, he jumped out after her with the goons under his arms. "It looks like a ghost town though."

She squinted in the direction of the streets. "It's clean enough. The lack of people probably has something to do with these pirates. Can't be coincidence that they were so close by."

Zoro's eyebrows raised at her quick assessment. "Sometimes you say things that actually make sense."

"Everything I say makes sense," she pouted. "Now come on, let's go explore the mystery town and punch out some bad guys!"

"Fine, let's get this over with."

"Wait a minute," Luffy said, stopping in place and gripping Zoro's haramaki so he couldn't leave without her. "There're a couple of things you gotta know…" She told him about Buggy's devil fruit, about Cabaji's dirty tricks, about how this entire town was precious to its inhabitants and was something to be protected.

"Some pirate," the swordsman finally replied, looking amused. "Next you're going to tell me not to kill anyone."

"That's stupid. I can't be a pirate if I worried about things like that," she told him, putting her hands to her waist. Zoro gave her a surprised look, as if he hadn't expected that answer, until she added, "But if you can avoid it…"

He rolled his eyes and grunted, "Figures."

"That's all, I think. Okay, let's go explore!"

"Oi! What do you jerks think you're doing?" someone yelled.

Nami clenched the map tighter in her fist and peered down the street for her saviour. She was saved! She wasn't a powerhouse after all, and her only major weapons were her brain and her staff. She knew she was sly and clever, but she couldn't take on three huge men on her own unless she wanted to push herself, but she'd really prefer not to... Really, everything would be so much easier if she just had a plank of wood, three trumpets and a goat. Alas, it was not to be.

But then again, that voice had been notably high. A girl's voice.

Nami spotted the woman who had shouted, and registered the small build, the thin, almost brittle looking limbs, the wide, round eyes. Her heart dropped into her stomach at her fleeing hope and a sick boil of guilt began to take root in its stead. Although a conventional escape seemed impossible, she could still… she could still use the girl to her advantage. It would be easy to pretend that the passerby was Nami's boss and direct the thugs' attention to her instead, so Nami could make a quick getaway. She could even come back to sneak her away later, Nami assured herself, so it wasn't like she was abandoning the girl to any permanent, terrible fate. No, she wasn't being cruel, she wouldn't just leave the girl, she'd definitely come back later.

Guilt assuaged, Nami prepared to implement this plan immediately – and then she saw the large man looming protectively behind the other girl.

Alright, scrap that plan, go for the cute girl in danger route.

"Help me," Nami cried, rapidly falling into her new role. Crocodile tears brimmed in her eyes. "Please, I'm so scared!"

Both of the strangers gave her unimpressed looks – as did the three thugs, but she ignored them. She could understand the girl, but come on, was that guy's heart made of ice? Nami was cute, dammit! She knew she was cute! Why was she feeling self-conscious? Just because the other girl had bigger boobs—

No. Focus. It wasn't just money at stake here, it was her life (and the lives of all her precious people; she couldn't let them down, not now, not when she was so close, not ever).

Nami choked out another sob. "Please!"

"Aw, don't cry pretty lady," spoke the girl. At least she acknowledged Nami's exceptional looks. The thief liked her better already. "I need you to do something for me, okay?"

"A-anything," Nami said, instead of protesting the way she wanted. "I'll do anything!"

"Duck."

Wha—

"Gomu Gomu no Whip!"

And without conscious thought, years of finely honed reflexes forced Nami to the ground as a long, fleshed colored something shot out of nowhere and lashed into the heads of the three confused Buggy pirates, knocking them out cold. She slowly peered up to see the girl standing with one leg still raised in what seemed to be the remnants of a roundhouse kick.

Surely that wasn't—there is no way that—how could that be possible—

What. The hell.

"W-w-what was that?" Nami stuttered, nervously shuffling back.

"Nothing much," the girl said to her with a grin. She began to tread closer, the man hovering over her shoulder like a dark storm cloud. "More than that, are you okay? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

Nami managed to gather herself enough to realize that the girl was actually quite strong, despite how she looked, and had an absurd kind of ability, though she still wasn't really sure what it was. But most importantly, she realized that the girl was indeed a softhearted person whom Nami could exploit. Not cruelly, of course, since she wasn't a rotten pirate, but in a way that would be advantageous to the both of them.

"You – you saved me just in time. I don't want to imagine what they would have done to me!" The thief stumbled her way towards the pair and threw her arms over narrow shoulders. She was surprised to find that the girl didn't actually feel as frail as she looked, and that her skin had a really strange texture besides. "Thank you! Thank you so much!"

"Shishi, no problem," the strange girl said, patting a hand between her shoulders. There was an exasperated huff of air above the two women, and Nami peered up to meet impassive black eyes. She fluttered her eyelashes. The guy looked absolutely unmoved.

Hmph, whatever. I'm too cute for you anyway.

Nami squeaked when slender arms suddenly wrapped around her middle and hoisted her onto a supple shoulder bone, and was distracted once more by the odd nature of the girl's body. Normally, shoulders tended to be hard and bony, but this particular shoulder was… weirdly springy.

No wait, more importantly...

"What the hell are you doing?" she barked, kicking her feet wildly and pounding the girl's back with a fist. "Put me down. Put me down right now!"

There was a low chuckle and Nami's eyes snapped up in a glare.

"So now you show your true colors."

She grit her teeth when she realized she'd broken out of character. Dammit! And it had been going so well too; just a little bit more and she would have guilt tripped the girl into becoming her bodyguard.

"All right," the other girl said, marching forward unmindful of Nami's swinging feet. "We'll talk shop, and then go get rid of that jerk Buggy."

"T-talk shop? What are you talking about? And let me down already!" Her brain sparked. "Wait, what do you mean get rid of Buggy? You trying to get yourself killed or something?" She began to struggle wildly, but deceptively skinny arms kept her firmly in place. "Let me go! Let me go right this moment, I'm not taking part in your suicide mission, no way!"

"It's not a suicide mission. I'm strong, and he is too," Luffy said, gesturing at Zoro. "Would it make you feel better any if I told you the guy behind me is Pirate Hunter Roronoa Zoro?"

"Pirate hunter? Who's—" She blinked as she recognized the name. "Roronoa Zoro…? Wait, you mean the Majū? That's the Demonic Beast Roronoa Zoro?"

"Uh, sure," the girl replied, sounding confused for a moment though Nami wasn't sure why. "Yup, that's Zoro."

The pirate thief stared at the man whose head loomed above her and was met with a feral grin that had most definitely not been there before. She cowered away in fear. What kind of crazy company had she found herself in?

"Okay... I'm guessing that didn't help. He won't hurt you, you know," the girl added. Said man chuckled lowly at that and Nami felt herself beginning to hyperventilate. "Hey, stop that. I know you get your kicks from scaring people, but we need her."

To Nami's surprise – because she'd heard that Roronoa Zoro obeyed no one, especially not anyone of the fairer sex – he actually stopped. The grin slid off his face and the disinterested look returned. Nami felt comforted by it this time, rather than insulted.

Who was this girl, to command the Demon Beast like that? She'd have to stay close to her. Nami foresaw much profit from a mutual partnership.

But not this close.

"Let me down!"

"Shishishishi!"

"I'm Nami. I specialize in stealing from pirates."

"My name is Luffy! Nice you meet you!" she cheered happily, glad to be finally meeting her future navigator.

Zoro, on the other hand, was frowning heavily. "Hey Luffy, you sure we should be dealing with her?"

"What's wrong with it?" Luffy asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Yeah," Nami snapped. The navigator had become much more comfortable in their presence after she realized Zoro wouldn't kill her. "What's wrong with it? The Demon Beast has no right to look down on thieves."

What was with this majū business? Or rather, Majū, since it seemed to be more of a title than a descriptor. Her adventures since leaving Foosha had thus far roughly followed the general script she knew. Up until now, she had been taking for granted that the Strawhats were almost exactly like they had been in the tale she had read and adored. Maybe she shouldn't have made such an assumption…?

Now that she thought of it, in the other world Zoro had only been described to be 'like a demonic beast' and only a few times. But in Shells Town, he had been called 'the demon beast' and the words had followed him everywhere, almost like it was directly attached to his name. In fact, Nami hadn't even recognized the epithet of Pirate Hunter, and she was much, much more afraid of him than she should be. Coby had made sense, but strong, independent Nami?

"Hey, why do you keep calling Zoro that?" Luffy asked curiously.

Nami cocked a brow. "Calling him what?"

"You keep calling him a majū. Why?"

Zoro stiffened, and Nami gave her a deeply shocked look. "What do you mean, why? You're traveling with this guy and you don't even know anything about him?"

Luffy pouted. "I know stuff about him! I know he's Zoro, and he wants to be the greatest swordsman ever, and he's really strong, and he's a good guy once you get to know him..."

The other girl's eyes widened. "A good guy? He's barely on this side of legal," which was not really saying much, Luffy thought, seeing as how two of them were pirates and the other was a thief who was also actually a pirate, "and that's because everyone's too scared of him to say anything! Don't you know how he got his name? It's—"

"Not important," Zoro interrupted. He glowered dangerously at Nami, who flinched and then tried to pass it off as a flick of her hair.

Luffy stared at her first mate, who avoided her gaze. He was hiding something. There was something in his past that he very much did not want her to be aware of. If she asked, would he answer?

She frowned. Of course he would. She knew it very well. Zoro was a man of his word, and he had sworn her as his captain and she could order him to tell her. But did she want to know? Did she really care all that much?

Because the thing was, she really didn't. If it was that important, he would tell her. She didn't care what he had done before meeting her; all that was important was what was happening in the present moment. And right now, Zoro was her precious nakama and she would trust his judgement in this.

"Okay," Luffy answered plainly. Zoro stiffened further, mistaking her dismissal for something else, before blinking at her. He slowly, cautiously allowed his shoulders to relax again, in increments, as if expecting her to come up with some sort of stipulation. She just grinned at him. "If you say so."

Nami looked at her with a strange expression – it looked a little like abject horror, actually – before she shook her head and began to speak again. "A-anyway… I was thinking of proposing a partnership between us. You seem really strong, and I could use your help. I'm planning on going to the Grand Line to steal from even richer pirates. Look, with this map I stole from Buggy, it'll be a breeze! We can split 50-50 on what we earn, so you should consider it."

Luffy absently rubbed under her nose and glanced out the window. "Why would you go so far just for money?"

Nami's eyes blazed at the question. "My goal is to buy a certain village. I need one hundred million beli to do that, and I'll do whatever it takes to reach that goal!"

Hearing this, Luffy paused. Silently, she held her breath and thought for a moment, before allowing the caught breath to drift out of her lungs. It was a huge risk, what she was about to do, and could go horribly – so very, horribly – wrong, but it would save Nami so much heartache if it worked.

"Say. Does this village you're talking about happen to be under threat of destruction? And do you need the money to save it from some bad people?"

Nami froze in surprise. "I… yes. How did you know?"

"It's a little obvious from the way you talk about it," Luffy said, very carefully not meeting hazel brown eyes. "And, this village… it wouldn't happen to be t-the Conomi Islands' Cocoyashi Village?"

"You—!" Nami leapt to her feet with a ferocious snarl and her chair clattered loudly to the ground behind her. Zoro's hand slid to the hilt of a black sword, but the girl looked too incensed to even bother with her earlier fear. "You tricked me! I can't believe I felt bad for you. Did Arlong send you? Who are you really? Marines? Bounty hunters? No wait, I know. I bet you're pirates. God, I can't believe I got so duped!"

Luffy's mind snagged on one phrase in particular. "Why would you feel bad for me?"

"If you don't know, then it doesn't matter," she snapped. "I'm leaving."

"Wait, don't go yet," an elongated arm snagged around Nami's narrow waist and reeled her in. "I really, really need to talk to you!"

"What d'you mean, 'need to talk to me'? I don't need to hear anything from the likes of you!" Nami began to thrash wildly, pushing and squeezing and scratching at Luffy's arm – and Luffy had to admit that last one hurt a bit of a lot. "Don't touch me!"

"But what if I said I could help you get rid of Arlong?"

Nami glared. "I don't need your help, you dirty pirate. I can do everything on my own!"

The sarcastically smirking Zoro quipped, "And how's that working out for you?"

"Shut up, you filthy, shameless murderer," the navigator spat. "It's working out perfectly fine!"

"What," he began, his voice an icy calm, "did you just call me?" His thumb flicked at the golden tsuba of Wado Ichimonji to reveal sleek, sharp silver, but Nami was far too gone to be cowed at the threat. The girl's hand lingered near her thigh, three rods twirling around her fingers.

When did she even pull those out?

"You heard me, you inhuman brute. I'm surprised you can even stand to be near civilization, with how much blood is on your hands. Maybe I'll tell her all about the Mangetsu Massacre, save you the trouble!"

Luffy ignored the name – if Zoro didn't want her to know, then she wouldn't try to find out – and preoccupied herself with trying to figure out how to diffuse this situation. The relationship between her two first nakama was quickly becoming much, much, much worse than she'd anticipated. The two hadn't really gotten along in the original story either, but they'd never actually come to armed blows as they seemed about to do now.

"Shut up, wench," Zoro hissed. A sword was pointed at Nami's throat so quickly that Luffy almost couldn't follow its movement, with only the lingering memory of a shiiik ringing in her ears to indicate that it had happened at all. Nami assembled her staff and pointed it at Zoro in that very same instant, and Luffy marveled at the thief's speed. Nami's weapon required much more movement to wield and the staff had already been prepared to parry Zoro's sword in the time it took him to draw, which meant that her hands were even swifter than his. But everyone in the room knew who would win in a fight between these two, and though Luffy commended her soon-to-be crewmate's sheer guts, she knew she'd have to interfere before someone got hurt.

"All right, let's not fight," the pirate captain said. She wrapped her rubbery limbs around Nami's entire body – "I said not to touch me!" was roared into red-clad breasts – and settled her chin on the older girl's head. "No hurting our future navigator, Zoro."

Nami struggled in her arms, but the limbs just snapped back every time they were pushed away. "I'm not ever going to be—"

"Tch." After a pause, the sword was returned to its sheath, considerably more slowly than it had been drawn. Zoro directed a dark look at the floor.

"Sorry. I know you're feeling restless from not being able to fight," Luffy soothed. Speaking of fighting… "I did promise you a battle on this island, didn't I?"

He gave an impatient grunt.

"Then can you go beat up some of the Buggy Pirates before they fire their cannons at things? I don't want the villagers to come back to find their homes gone just because some jerks were bored. I'll join you after I finish talking with Nami." Hearing this, a small smirk found its way on the swordsman's mouth and he began making his way to the door. "Ah, but Zoro… make sure you go in the opposite direction of where you think they are."

"My sense of direction isn't like yours," he replied, rolling his eyes. Luffy wondered if his eyes would fall out at this rate. "I'm not gonna get lost."

She gave his departing form a dull stare.

He's gonna get lost.

"I—can't—breathe!"

"Ah, Nami!" Luffy yelped. She unraveled all of her limbs except her arms and grinned at the girl. "I forgot!"

"You dumbass pirate!"

"Sorry, sorry," she laughed.

The other girl just scowled at her. "You said you have something to say to me, and you won't let me leave until you say it, so spit it out already!"

Well, if she insisted...

"Nami," Luffy said, turning serious. She dropped her arms and stepped back, to allow this conversation the gravity it deserved. "Arlong, he—he never intended to let you buy Cocoyashi."

The orange-haired woman immediately tensed and ground her teeth. "Even for a joke... that's going too far."

"It's not a joke. I'm serious. Arlong is never going to give Cocoyashi to you, and he's never going to let you leave."

"Y-you're lying. He promised that if I could pay him 100 million beli, Cocoyashi would be mine. He gave me his word."

"Sure, if you managed to get the money to him. But what if he found out where you hid the money?"

"There's no way—!"

"What if he paid off a marine to dig up your stash and confiscate it? There's no way you could give him the money then. He'd be able to keep you and still keep his word. Arlong would do something like that, and you know it! He would, and he could, and he will."

"No, this—you—this can't—you're lying. You're a dirty, despicable pirate, and a fucking liar! Shut up. Just shut up!"

But Luffy could see the terror dawning in the lines of her face, the twist of her mouth, the trembling of her hands, and silently apologized as she continued, "Think about it, Nami! Arlong hates humans, but he's kept you by his side for years. That's how valuable you are. I met those Buggy pirates you stole from earlier, and I know you can read weather like an open book. Sailors spend their entire lives trying to get as half as good as you are. Do you think he's going to let skill like that slip away so easily? He won't! He's a pirate too, and he's not above yanking you around. Please Nami, think about it—"

"I said shut up!" A hand shot out and slapped her across the face. Nami glared down with wide, angry eyes, her reddened fingers still trembling in the air. "You're trying to get me to give up? Well, tell Arlong that I won't! Cocoyashi's going to be mine if I have to kill him for it!"

Luffy paid no mind to the strange stinging, and instead watched Nami with downturned lips.

She had hoped to avoid the entire Arlong Park debacle entirely. She had wanted Nami to stay with her, to let them defeat Arlong and save the navigator from the despair that would suffocate her until she choked against the force of her own tears.

What an idiot I am. I didn't realise...

Because in the end, it didn't matter that Nami thought she was working on Arlong's orders, or that she actually wasn't; the result was the same. It was quickly becoming clear how cruel Luffy was being, telling the girl to throw away years and years of sweat and blood and tears and pain just because she wanted to swoop in and save the day.

However, that didn't mean she would just give up here. If Nami wanted to do it that way, then who was she to try and stop her? There was no reason to force everything to follow the exact same series of events as it had done in the original timeline, not when there were so many other ways to make everything better.

"You don't have to kill anyone for it," Luffy told her, mouth set in a determined line. "Because I'll make sure myself Arlong won't be able to stop you. If he so much as touches the money you've gathered, I'll punch him into the ground."

The black-haired girl watched as bubbling fury slowly bled into bewilderment. "W-what? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if you've decided that's how you're going to save Cocoyashi, then I'm going to beat up anyone who tries to stop you."

"Why would you—are you making fun of me?"

Luffy's eyes flared with heat. "I would never, ever, mock someone else's ambition!" Her voice was soft, but every word sounded through the silence like the crashing of waves against the shoreline. "Whether that ambition is changing the shape of the world, or escaping the bonds of your family, or finding a reason to live, or becoming the greatest swordsman in the world, or even being my rival for Pirate King, I will never, ever, ever, ever laugh!"

"You—Pirate King?"

She bulldozed on. "Nami. I know you're smart and strong and capable and stubborn. But sometimes even the strongest people need help. No one can do everything alone, that's why we have friends and family and nakama! If your dream is to pry Cocoyashi away from Arlong, I'll help you steal as much money as you need until it's done. If your dream is breaking free from his grip, I'll hold that bastard down so you can sever those chains with your own two hands. If your dream is to draw a map of everything in the whole wide world, I'll get the best ship and crew you've ever seen so we can travel the seas together!" She took a deep breath and concentrated all of her excess energy in the exhale. This next part would need delicacy, and not the loud brashness that she was so prone to.

Face softening, Luffy reached forward as if to a wild animal, her movements slow and soothing as she gently took the other girl's hands in her own smaller ones. She peered up into tremulous honey brown and said, softly as she could, "So please, join my crew. Please, Nami… please be my nakama."

Please let me help was left unsaid but rang just as clearly in the air trapped between them.

"Why?" came a hoarse whisper in a voice that she barely recognized as Nami's.

"Because," Luffy said simply. "I like your heart."

"My... heart?" The older girl's eyes bled clear dewdrops that lingered even after they were angrily swiped away, and her next words were oddly vulnerable. "You're not trying to trick me? You're not... You're not going to use me too?"

"Never," Luffy swore. "If I ever try to make you do anything you hate, you can hit me as many times as you want. If I ever do something unforgivable, just tell me you don't want to be my nakama anymore, and I'll scram so you don't ever have to see my face again. As long as it's of your own free will, I won't stop you from leaving. And if I ever get in the way of your dreams... you can kick me overboard."

Nami let out a choked giggle at the last part, probably imagining what that would look like, a captain being sent to walk the plank of her own ship by the navigator. Luffy suspected she didn't know what being tossed overboard meant for a devil fruit user.

Well, whatever. It was nice to hear her laugh.

"Um, hey... About that..." Nami mumbled, pointing hesitantly at the red hand mark on Luffy's cheek.

"It's fine," Luffy reassured her, smiling. "If you need, you can even do it again."

"I can... I can 'do it again'?" The navigator parroted. Her pretty face slowly twisted into an amalgamation of disbelief and exasperation. "And you're asking me why I felt bad for you? You're too nice! Like a doormat that everyone can walk over."

"I don't let people walk over me!" Luffy replied, a little annoyed. "Like when anyone I hate touches my hat, I pound them."

In fact, she was only willing to let Nami do such a thing because she was Nami. If, for example, Alvida had attempted such a thing...

Well, Luffy could only disclose that a Pistol to the face wasn't all she'd be getting.

"Fine, fine, whatever you say." Nami briskly scrubbed her face and stood up. "Just so you know, this doesn't mean I trust you or anything. I'm just taking you up on your offer, okay?"

"Shishishishi!" Luffy grinned widely and reached out to wrap herself around her new crewmate. "OKAY!"

Even though she grumbled about not being able to breathe and pushed out at rubbery arms and legs, Luffy could feel Nami's lips curving into a smile against her shoulder.

*Majū (魔獣) — the kanji literally means "witch; demon; evil spirit" (魔, ma) and "animal; beast" (獣, juu). Together it means demonic beast. Technically, Zoro's full epithet when spoken out loud is now "Majū no Roronoa Zoro" which translated is "Demon(ic) Beast Roronoa Zoro." He actually is called that in the manga but just as a description, not as a title (as Luffy mentioned above).

Notes —

I really do hate bras. I accept that they are necessary evils, but in the One Piece world (where everyone's boobs are bouncy and gravity defying), why would the rubber Luffy choose to keep wearing them? Therefore, no bra. (Oh, Ace.)

Actually Luffy is a crybaby here, for some things at least. Because 1) he was originally a bit of a crybaby anyway, 2) women tend to be more publicly emotional, whether due to social convention or psychological differences (probably the former) and mostly because 3) semi-selfinsert. Luffy's stuck with some of my traits (not all though; this is 'semi' self-insert for more than one reason) and I get teary very easily. Usually I hide away when I can't suck them back in, as Luffy is trying to do here, because it's embarrassing? Ahaha...

You may wonder why Nami isn't asking 'how would you know something like that', and one reason is that she thinks Arlong himself sent Luffy to persuade her to stop her activities, and that the girl just changed sides because she didn't want to. The other reason will be explored in chapter 6.

(First edited May 2016, last edited October 2016.)

[10/01/16: beta'd by beribboned. number one tofu of my heart! saikou desu!]