Chapter includes a tiny smidgeon of canon-typical violence, if that's not your cup of cha.
Fraya123L – so glad to hear you enjoyed Confused Zoro! He's my fave to write :D
People ground against each other in the murky darkness, the air thick with the pure energy of hundreds of people having the time of their life. Bright lights cut sporadically through the darkness, illuminating the scene in brief bursts before casting everything back into the safety of shadows and the haze of alcohol, hanging heavy in the air and probably making all attendees drunk just by breathing the fumes. The bone-pounding thumping of the bass shook Nami to her core, rattling loose her earlier misgivings of attending the post-game party.
This could actually be somewhat fun.
Usopp's directions, filled with more and more spelling mistakes the longer the evening wore on, guided her to a somewhat secluded corner filled with different types of party games; everything from Jenga to beer pong to arrow-hopping dance maniacs could be found here. Chopper was surprisingly good at the last one and was currently surrounded by a crowd of people cheering him on as his hooves flew from arrow to arrow in perfect sync with the beat.
"Nami!"
A joyous shout greeted her and Usopp fell around her shoulders, trapping her with his gangly arms and a beer threateningly close to spilling down the back of her hoodie. Zoro, who'd followed her with a minimal amount of fuss so far, took the opportunity to vanish into the crowd in search of something to drink.
Oh well, she'd done her duty by bringing him here. He was now at the venue and out of her hands, thus becoming someone else's headache. Preferably Luffy's.
A beer materialised before Nami as Rebecca, rosy-cheeked and giggling, appeared from the Chopper-chanting crowd and brought with her the nectar of the gods and drinking choice of the evening.
"Good party so far?" Nami asked, gratefully catching the proffered drink.
"Amazing!" Rebecca laughed, eyes shining with merriment and wonder. The girl had recently started her studies and this was her first official university party, except for the fresher shindig that no-one ever had any recollections from anyway.
Nami did not envy her early morning lecture on the morrow. Not one bit. Been there, done that, got the scars to prove it, thank you very much.
"Hear, hear!" Usopp tried to clink his glass with Rebecca's in approval and looked slightly put-out that his plastic cup only managed to produce a dull 'thud'.
But the upset was short-lived as the wiry man shrugged and tightened his grip around Nami's shoulders, a very grave air unexpectedly falling over him.
"Nami, I have a question."
Nami donned her serious face to match his mien, throwing her own arm around his waist to keep her balance. "Usopp, I am ready to hear this conundrum."
He squinted at her multisyllabic formulation, his present state more suited to tiny words.
And then he overcame the obstacle of vocabulary selections, took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks and squinted in an honest effort to focus on his companion.
"Borrow or rob?"
Nami could but stare. And considered dumping him in a ditch somewhere. Let bygones be bygones. Her past was in the past and should preferably stay there.
Whatever had brought up her less than savoury choices of yore?
"What?"
"You heard me. Borrow or rob?"
"I have absolutely no idea what you want me to do with this."
"Nami, Nami, Nami. You–" Usopp paused to wave a very wobbly finger in her face seriously, "–can't tell a soul about this."
"No-one I know will care," Nami answered both his question and his gesture, equally seriously and with more grace, her finger wobbling only slightly due to the strain of keeping Usopp standing. "They already know."
"They know?" Usopp's expression was something to treasure for a moment, his whole face falling in sadness. And yet, he managed to focus his gaze somewhere behind Nami's ear, which was a feat indeed as he was leaning on it. "They know that…taco cat spelled backwards is… still… taco cat?"
And all possibility of a nice, calm, evening disappeared like mist in the morning, like test scores after a heavy night of drinking, and like Nami's hope for the future.
Usopp had found that sweet spot in his intoxication where palindromes were the best thing since sliced bread.
Borrow or rob, indeed.
If she didn't get him sober, he'd soon sink to puns.
"I really don't know what to do with this information," she said.
"Do they also know…"
Nami waited in trepidation.
"…that dog food lid spelled backwards is dildo of God?"
"I… don't know what to do with this information either."
"Oh, you're doing palindromes?" A delighted Rebecca appeared once more from the fandom surrounding Chopper who had just crushed his last opponent and was now blushing furiously at the praise showering him. "Sanji taught me one! I think it goes… 'Tu l'as trop écrasé, César, ce Port Salut'." The girl stumbled over the last words and dissolved in a fit of giggles, hanging from Nami's arm.
Chopper, newly emerged dance game master, stared in wonderment. "What does that mean?"
"That Roman emperors should be more careful with their cheeses," Nami sighed. Sanji's other favourite palindrome involved waking Usopp up by hollering 'Esope reste ici et se repose!' approximately half an inch from his ear.
"What's Port Salut?"
"Well, it's sort of port, but not quite," Usopp snickered. "And Caesar should know that if you want to reach Port-Salut and enjoy some port with your welcoming salute, it is ab-salutely necessary you keep port when de-porting Portsmouth."
Nami would punt him up the river without a paddle if he didn't soon expunge his punitive punchlines.
"Port and starboard," Chopper giggled. "Hoist the sails, Portsmouth in the rear!"
The young doctor still had some work to do on his punning abilities, it would seem.
"Ahoy, ahoy, Captain Dorkface!" Usopp joined in, throwing up a mock salute for good measure, beaming at an increasingly irate Nami.
Russet eyes narrowed dangerously. She might have a healthy appreciation for fantasy and classics, such as, just to take a totally random example straight out of the blue, Lord of the Rings, but her crew knew what she thought of being called a dork.
At least out in public.
"Usopp, if there is something good in this world left fighting for, and more importantly, you want to live to see the good things, you will never, ever say that out loud again."
Usopp merely grinned at her threatening tone before hunching over and wringing his hands theatrically.
"Usopp promises to Nami, promises faithfully! Never come again, never speak, no never!"
"Captain Dorkface?" A deep rumble behind her made her tense up. "And what have you done to make the poor man cover like that?"
Nami froze.
Surely not.
Surely such a man would absolutely not deign to attend the after-game party. Not the king of glowering looks and barely concealed disdain for revelry and merrymaking and general debauchery.
He couldn't be here, not in this den of sin and students who were so plastered they could start their own construction business.
Auditory hallucinations were known to occur in stressful situations. She was just imagining things and it was probably just Kid who had quite a deep voice and it just couldn't be the one person she really, really didn't want to meet tonight.
But when she turned around to face the interloper, she came face to chin with one Trafalgar Law.
"Captain Cheater," she greeted him, fighting to keep her voice level.
Why was it that the man managed to fill her with such… conflicting emotions? His cheating ways infuriated her (and impressed her a little; not many people got past old Tsuru's hawk eyes) and his lazy grin made weird things happen to her stomach, flipping it around like that. The way his shirt stretched over surprisingly broad shoulders made her remember the afternoon's delight of seeing him with his shirt half off and she had to dunk herself in a mental ice bucket to get her brain back on track.
He was infuriating and wily and too clever by half and so very pretty. The way his eyes seemed to dance in the flickering light that also somehow drew out a shade of blue in his hair that she was sure wasn't visible in the harsh fluorescent light of their office. A confident half-smirk played around his lips that were just begging for her to first bite and then soothe with her tongue and she really had to get her mind out of this gutter right now.
Remember his horrible personality. Remember how he makes Luffy sigh and how his friendship with Bepo was his only redeeming quality.
"My, my. Whatever died and made you queen of the crabs?"
Amber eyes narrowed in a way that would have made her friends run for the hills.
Law, however, was not her friend and thus merely stood his ground.
"You cheated."
"I have no idea what you mean."
"I have no idea what kind of fruit powers you have, but you used them today. No-one who's not a professional player is that good with a ball. Ergo, you cheated."
The sly half-smile spread over his whole face creating the most adorable dimple she hadn't noticed before.
Those lips were made for so much more than delivering condescending comments and patronising presentations…
Nami shook the thought loose. Focus.
"Are you calling me a player?"
Nami blinked.
She… deserved that one.
"I am calling you a cheater, make of that what you will."
"I would never."
"Say what you want, I know what I saw."
He regarded her for a moment, head tilted to the side, face neutral.
"Let me ask you, then… did you see something like this during the game?"
A sudden blue glow enveloped them and Nami found her empty glass being switched with a full one. She could take a stab at its origins, as a great commotion was heard from half a cavernous room away, followed by Kid's unmistakeable bellow of 'Who the FUCK took my beer?'.
Nami could only stare, dumbfounded for a moment, before her eyes narrowed once more.
She had heard about many Devil Fruit powers (and lived with one of the simultaneously most annoying and most hilarious ones in existence) and had read up on the rest of them.
Everyone knew there was only one active user of a specific power at a time, the ability going back into circulation after the owner's death. Everyone who knew anything also knew that there was a register of current active users that had been instituted after the commotion surrounding a very public incident involving a mob boss called Whitebeard. Nami didn't know much about the events leading up to the clash between law enforcement and the Whitebeard syndicate, except for some conflicting online rumours, but for the past decades, all fruit users had to register themselves or face the consequences.
And one Trafalgar Law was missing from any of the official registers.
"The Ope-ope no mi."
Law raised an impressed eyebrow.
"Not many know that right off the bat."
"Not many read as much as I do. So you admit that you cheated."
"I never admitted to anything of the sort, just that I have fruit powers."
The speed with which he had intercepted her earlier that day, the ball just vanishing from her feet…
"Fuck off, Law, either you cheated or then the football world is missing a major talent."
A casual shrug followed her outburst. "Maybe I'm just that good, ever thought of that?"
The blue sheen was still hanging over them like a blanket, distorting their environment like clingfilm. It didn't do anything to muffle the sounds of the party surrounding them but did lend everything a weird blue tint.
The enveloping heat and beat were pressing down on Nami, focusing her world on the golden glint in Law's eyes; those clever eyes that were clearly mocking her.
"Ever thought of getting lost?"
"Not very polite or proper to answer with a counter-question."
"I've never claimed to be a polite or proper lady."
An unimpressed expression met her declaration. "Yes, you did. Last week, during the coffee break where Vivi blamed you for stealing her tea."
Nami could but stare. She remembered the incident but hadn't really paid attention to Law more than noting his presence in the room. Vivi had, quite rightfully, blamed Nami for stealing the last of her tea and although both knew what had really happened, Nami had kept up the charade and claimed both innocence and well-bred manners, a smile tugging at her mouth the whole time Vivi scolded her with laughter in her eyes.
It had taken him a while to recognise her.
In the office, she usually dressed in work-appropriate clothes or buried herself in a mountain of jumpers, due to the temperature of their shared room. He hadn't seen her much around campus and so couldn't judge her normal wardrobe beyond that.
But if it was anything like what she was wearing tonight, he was going to pay a lot more attention in the future.
His journey of appreciation started with her boots. Black, practical and a little worn, but still managing to highlight apparently endless legs that led up to the shortest skirt he had ever seen: if she bent down, there would undoubtedly be A View and probably some accidents around, judging from the interested glances thrown her way from the surrounding crowd of people. A dark hoodie, something he normally considered a lumpy and unattractive piece of clothing, seemed to hug curves he had not noticed properly before the football match earlier in the day. Her bright hair, spilling over her shoulders, shimmered like spun gold in the flickering light, the normal hues of flaming orange and an almost luminous red dancing from the deepest bronze to a luminous shade of honey. And her eyes… he could drown in those eyes, if he wasn't careful. They shimmered like his favourite coffee blend, the treasured wake-up call that made his days bearable.
If he were to compare her to a summer's day, it would have been one of the scorching days of high summer when the sun beat down on unsuspecting victims, parching throats and making all desperate for a quick dip in some ice-cold water.
And her body didn't hold a candle to the brilliance that was her mind and personality.
She was one of the smartest people of his acquaintance. The quality of her work was impressive, as was the logic of her arguments. He had come to enjoy their casual exchanges, her tongue becoming sharper and her growing bolder the longer their acquaintance grew. She never had any problems following his train of thought, countering his theories with well-formulated remarks and expanding on half-baked thoughts with intricate insights, easily combining their separate fields of study.
Something was curling behind his ribs, sending shocks down his spine when she moved and a fresh, citrusy smell filled his nostrils.
With a start, Trafalgar Law realised the trouble he was starting to dip his toes in. If he wasn't careful, she could become a real problem.
Her voice interrupted his thoughts and he refocused on her, catching the tail end of a comment regarding the fruit user registry. If he was this distracted, maybe the time had come for him to depart for the safety of his apartment.
The only logical thing was to appreciate her beauty and brilliance at a distance and then lock all those pesky sprouts of feelings up in a little box and never think about them again.
If she wasn't utterly convinced that he was physically incapable of such paltry things, Nami would have sworn Law just spaced out. She exchanged a bewildered look with Usopp who had straightened and sobered up a notch at the sight of Law's Devil Fruit demonstration, looking wide-eyed at the older man.
"Fine, don't tell me why you're missing from the registry. I'll figure it out myself."
He shook his head as if dislodging a thought and the blue dome flickered out of existence.
"Good luck with that," he said with a indolent smile. "Let me know when you have it."
With a last withering look at her colleague, Nami grabbed Usopp by the scruff of his neck and stormed off.
But the night had lost its flavour after the encounter.
No matter how daring Luffy's somersaults in the bouncy castle became or how many beers she downed with Zoro and Kid, her whole vibe was off. Not even the arrival of Sanji, whose flirting and heartfelt compliments usually did the trick in lifting her spirits, could help.
And Law's words kept niggling at her. She was so sure he had cheated. His game had been so smooth, his footwork so quick. But there had been no blue light in sight and no supernatural exchanges she could remeber.
She just couldn't get a grip on the man. What did he want?
With a final drained gesture to her friends, she shrugged on her jacket and took her leave, directing her tired steps towards the exit, declining Sanji's offers of walking her home in the process. She didn't want to drag him from the party when he'd just arrived, not for just a couple of blocks.
If it would have been Zoro, she would have handcuffed them together and damn the consequences, but she possessed a sliver of navigational skills and could thus find her own way home.
"I'll be fine," she called, waving goodbye over her shoulder. "Usopp, I'm counting on you to keep Luffy and Zoro in line."
The panicked protestations of her friend who was in way over his head with their two housemates was lost in the general party din.
Nami sighed, a weariness filling her very bones. This was all too confusing.
She just wanted to go home.
The cold night air hit her like a wall as she stepped outside, forcing her to wrap her arms around her in an effort to keep warm. When she'd left the Sunny earlier, she'd still been running hot from her encounter with Zoro but now the chill of the night had permeated the whole world.
Maybe a denim jacket wasn't the warmest thing to wear in November.
Unhurried steps retraced their earlier journey, taking her over the small square outside the party venue, past the fudge shop and further towards the river.
She liked nights.
The world seemed so at peace then, no-one running around or demanding her attention or help or advice or presence. Darkness was much easier on the eyes than the piercing light of day, although she did enjoy sunshine and bright days as well. In moderation. And in the distance.
Gingers burned so very easily in the sun.
But there was something soothing about nights. Stars shining above, a relaxed quiet filling the whole world with the sound of silence.
Except that the silence around her had been interrupted by soft steps behind her for the last couple of blocks, give or take a side street.
Her heartrate picked up as she fought to keep her gait unhurried. It didn't do to reveal that she'd noticed her pursuer. If she could just get a few streets ahead, there was a nice little alley next to the bridge she could disappear in, flanked by some backyards just made for vanishing tricks.
But as she turned the corner, she realised she was out of time.
A large man was lounging against the wall under a flickering streetlight and the one behind her had increased their pace significantly.
How very theatrical. No-one serious would play out such a tableau; they would get their target in a dark place without witnesses and with minimal lighting. And this told her two things: one, this situation was planned, and two, she had some time. Theatrical people loved to make their victims talk, so she had a few moments extra to work with.
She had made do with less before.
She also had a third suspicion: she was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If they had targeted her specifically, they would not want to give her any extra time to think.
And that made them pitiable fools indeed.
"Got a light?" the lounging man asked her, not even bothering to take out a cigarette. He ran his eyes over her appreciatively.
"I don't, I know what's bad for my health," she answered with a saccharine smile. Her skirt was short and her legs were long, a fact the lounging man seemed to appreciate very much indeed.
She'd show him how high than enabled her to kick.
"Come on love, don't be like that. Give us a grin," the man who had followed her said in a wheezy voice as he stepped out in the light. The voice suited his general complexion, his pointed face and ashy hair putting her in mind of a ferret.
"How about it, girlie?" the first man said, leering at her. "We'll have some fun."
A glance thrown towards the alley made her refocus her attentions – slight movements caught in the still night air, visible only as the slight shifting of shadows and audible only to someone listening for them. A third little piggy, probably.
"We'll get along nicely," a raspy voice crept out of the shadows to her right. Nami tensed. A third little piggy indeed. Three against one was not good odds, but she'd done with worse…
"Let's just take her," a soft voice from behind her made shivers creep up her spine. "Boss could get a good price for her."
A fourth one.
And she hadn't heard him at all.
There were four of them.
And one of them good enough to shroud himself completely.
Oh, fuck.
The lounger and the wheezer were now in front of her, blocking her path forward. To her right, a raspy one. Slight movements betrayed a jittery personality – he didn't have much patience. What made Nami pause was the one behind her, the soft-voiced creep who could move silently and thus knew how to do these things properly.
And that meant trouble.
To her left, the river cutting through town made escape difficult, but not impossible. Her hand came up to play with the cords of her hoodie in an apparent gesture of nervousness as she surveyed her situation.
The first attack would probably come from either the large lounger or the wheezing rat. Raspy and Creepy, as she had dubbed the unseen ones, were hopefully there mainly for support, not for actual hand-to-hand engagement. If they were, they wouldn't have made themselves known – they wanted her to realise she was outnumbered and to come with them with as little fuss as possible. So, probably supporting troops, not the main cavalry.
The three thugs she had initially identified were easy. She fluttered her eyelashes theatrically, for all the world looking like an innocent maiden, anxious about being out and about by herself. She could already see the appreciative stares of the two in front of her as she nibbled her lip in a way she knew drove most men crazy – she had practiced to get it just right.
But the one behind her kept her from reaching for her bō staff, kept securely tied to her upper thigh, or into her pocket to call for help.
"I just want to go home," she said, letting a tremor enter her voice. It didn't take much, she was loath to admit: the situation did not look good at all. She let her weight fall on one hip, hand cupping her cheek in an obviously helpless gesture.
"There's a lot of things I want and I still won't get them," the lounger said.
"I know one thing I want," the ferrety man leered at her, taking a step closer. "The boss won't care for a few marks on the goods. Especially if they heal easily." Another step took him almost in her range. "How about we try her out first?"
The chill in Nami's spine froze to ice at the easy suggestion of violence and brutality.
Oh, fuck indeed.
"How about it, love? I think I'll make you scream."
"Oh, please sir, just let me go home," Nami whimpered. "I promise I won't tell anyone about this." A hesitant half-step backwards, and her weight was almost completely on her left foot. Perfect.
A repulsive smile spread over the ferret's face as he stepped toward her. She waited until he was close enough for the rancid stench of old beer and sweat to fill her nose before she eased her stance and slammed her right knee up between his legs, taking a brief moment to savour the moment of connection.
The man fell to the ground with a whimper. And then she was on the move.
A skip forward brought her next to the lounger, standing stunned by the sudden change in her demeanour and a quick swipe of her foot coupled with a well-directed upward stroke of the heel of her palm sent him tumbling to the ground, blood pouring from a freshly broken nose. A kick to the head kept him down. The Rasper was quicker on the uptake than his colleagues, but she ducked under an outreached arm and smashed her elbow into his ribs, hitting him behind his ear for good measure before slamming her heel into his stomach, forcing him to join his comrades on the ground.
She twirled around, coming face to face with Creepy.
And she froze.
Close, far too close, stood a young man, clear blue eyes shaded by hair the shade of summer wheat. A bright smile graced his seraphic face. He was a hair shorter than her, hands stuck in the pockets of a dark grey hoodie.
He couldn't have been older than fifteen.
And then he moved faster than she'd seen anyone move and her arm was wrenched behind her. A sharp cry tore from her at the sudden pain shooting up through her shoulder.
"The boss doesn't care for easily healed marks, but I think we'll take you as you are," he laughed in her ear, his voice cheerful and oh, so young. "You seem like you'll be too much for this lot to break in."
Nami tried to squirm out of the lock but the young man twisted her arm further, forcing her to bend backwards. His other hand grasped her exposed throat, keeping her in place as her stance forced her down, head almost resting on his shoulder.
Nami had never been so scared in her life.
She had stolen and lied and scammed much larger people than this, but she had never been so utterly terrified.
No smart people were out this late in the evening (or early in the morning, depending on your point of view) and of course the young man had managed to get the side she had her phone on – she couldn't very well reach her phone without him noticing.
She'd just have to break the first rule of kidnapping victims and go with him to the secondary location. And hope that she'd figure something out in the meantime.
"Let's just play nicely, shall we?" he whispered in her ear before he gave her arm another jerk for emphasis, giggling at her pained cry.
"Hey!"
A loud voice echoed down the street.
Nami couldn't turn around to see who had arrived in the literal nick of time, but the displeased grimace she saw from the corner of her eye confirmed that it wasn't thuggish backup. Running steps could be heard in the distance as her captor tried to turn without losing his grip on her.
A blue sheen enveloped them.
And suddenly she was on the other side of the street, propped up by a strong arm around her waist, while the blond boy found himself clutching a stick. Her head whirled at the sudden warmth enveloping her; a warmth that smelled like vanilla and sandalwood. A twitch of her saviour's free hand and the young man disappeared, replaced by a small stone. A far-off splash suggested that he'd become intimately acquainted with the river.
And as Trafalgar Law loosened his grip on her, Nami stumbled forward as gracefully as a duck on roller-skates, barely keeping her balance.
"Are you all right?"
Her heart felt like it tried to beat its way out of her chest as she tried to gather her scattered wits. "I'm fine." She winced as the receding adrenaline made way for a throbbing burn in her shoulder. A warm hand wrapped around her arm, keeping her in place.
"I'll be the judge of that. Keep still." Law took her arm in a surprisingly gentle grip and moved it this way and that, reminding Nami of how her mother would look her over when she came home with scraped knees after a tumble.
His warm hands were steady and mild in their movements, methodical and confident in their path, noting her reactions to the slightest touch. But as she watched him through her lashes, she noticed the jarring difference between his actions and his expression.
Law appeared outwardly calm in the cold streetlight, but the hard lines of his mouth betrayed a tension in him she hadn't seen before. And there was something familiar about the glint in his eyes; an almost feral, visceral anger she knew far too well herself.
After a minute or two he let go of her arm. "Your shoulder might be a bit sore for a few days, but nothing seems broken or dislocated."
A short and extremely uncomfortable silence fell upon the pair.
It was a long time ago she had been so scared. If Law hadn't turned up… Nami shook her thoughts lose once more and forced a smile. "Thank you. For the check-up. And, well… everything."
Law shrugged, hands disappearing into his pockets. "I was just on my way home when I heard voices. Thought I'd better see what was going on."
The three men she had felled were still down, either unconscious or taking the smart option of playing dead.
"You want to report this?"
"No." The answer left her instinctively, her hindbrain deciding on the proper course of action before she had time to think.
He looked at her for a moment before giving a sharp nod.
Nami was surprised. She had expected him to demand she'd go to the police and that the situation would only be resolved by her storming off after a deafening shouting match.
She had not anticipated his acceptance.
She also hadn't anticipated that Law would fall in step with her and walk her home.
It wasn't before they reached the corner of Nami's street that either spoke.
"Thanks," Nami said, arms still wrapped around herself. She hadn't been able to stop the shivers racking through her. It was a long time since she had felt so vulnerable and if Law hadn't appeared–
She shuddered.
Law regarded her with a thoughtful look. "No problem. You're sure your arm is all right?"
Nami shrugged her shoulder gingerly, wincing at the soreness. "Hurts like hell, but it should be fine in a few days."
"If you say so."
Nami gave a tired smile. "Actually, it's you who says so."
Law merely shook his head at that.
"And the police–"
"No."
"All right," was all he said.
She considered him then for a moment.
If someone had told her she'd be walking home with Trafalgar Law a week, or even an hour ago, she'd have called them delusional.
And yet, here she was, standing with him in the flickering light of a streetlamp.
Dark clothes rendered him almost invisible in the half-light, hands hidden in the deep pockets of his coat and a scarf Nami could sworn was the result of Bepo's magical knitting hiding all but his face. His eyes were barely visible in the deep shadow cast by the fluffy cap on his head. A light breeze ruffled the strands of dark hair peeking out from under the rim, the general impression of 'unkempt academic' completed by a carefully curated look of shaggy sideburns and goatee framing a sharp jaw.
If she was honest with herself, she'd have to admit that Vivi was right; he was very handsome. And combined with the peek she'd had of the rest of him earlier in the day, she thought she would have been in some trouble, if not for her utter dislike of him as a person.
But here he was, her actual saviour in need. He had even walked her home to make sure she got home safe and sound. And he didn't even try to persuade her to go to the authorities with what had happened, when most people in his situation would have dragged her kicking and screaming to the police.
With a last searching look at her, he turned and disappeared into the night.
And Nami could but stare after the man, confusion trickling through her veins.
Results: "represents the core findings of a study derived from the methods applied to gather and analyze information. It presents these findings in a logical sequence without bias or interpretation from the author, setting up the reader for later interpretation and evaluation in the Discussion section" according to Wordvice.
In context: if a results section is illogical or badly structured, the reader cannot follow the author's process and the validity of the paper would thus be questioned.