Disclaimer: Oda-sensei is the genius who owns One Piece, not me.
Author's Note: This chapter was longer than I anticipated, but I wanted to backtrack a little and let you see what happened to Nami.
Diffraction
by Mako-clb
Chapter 4: Off Course
Nami smiled as she left the shop, her bag heavy with beri. There was very little that was more comforting than having large sums of money handy. Despite her joy at having a beautiful new ship to navigate and her relief that Usopp was back with them, Nami had been slightly on edge since leaving Water 7. Now she could relax a little.
She had been worried that because this was a small town there wouldn't be much interest in her maps, but it turned out the old man who owned the shop had been an experienced and discerning cartographer. Surprisingly, he had been more interested in her maps than in her body, but that suited Nami just fine. In addition to the beri, she even managed to wrangle a few more sheets of the high-quality paper from him. She planned to redraw her most precious maps on this new paper stock.
Looking at the sky, Nami realized she had spent a little longer haggling with the shop owner than she thought. The clouds had taken on a cotton-candy pink hue and the sky was a darker blue, but Nami was confident she could still make it back to the Thousand Sunny in time if she hurried.
As she turned towards the docks, Nami felt someone bump her from behind. Before she could react, a rough hand clamped over her mouth and something cold was pressed against her left temple.
"If you speak or struggle, I'll shoot you."
Nami could smell the rotted breath of her attacker as he whispered the threat in her ear. As much as it made her want to gag, she focused on assessing her situation. The hand over her mouth was strong, but slender, more like Sanji's hands than Zoro's, although the skin was dry and rough. She assumed the cold ring of metal against her head was a gun, maybe a pocket pistol based on what little she could see in her peripheral vision. That meant there was a good chance he could only get off a single shot before he had to reload. As the man thankfully shifted his mouth away from Nami's ear, she determined he was a little over a head taller than she was. But the feel of his torso pressed against her back didn't bring to mind Zoro's broad chest.
Nami's best guess was a tall, but not particularly muscular man, maybe with a build similar to Usopp. It seemed like he probably depended more on weapons than physical strength, but he was likely still stronger than Nami herself just based on size. But not much stronger.
The gun scared her, but what really had her afraid was the strange, thick fog that surrounded them. She knew it wasn't actual fog. The humidity was too low and the air temperature was wrong, but she didn't know how else to describe what was obscuring her vision.
Worse was the fact that nobody seemed to notice her at all. None of the blurry figures appeared to be moving quickly. She could hear the sound of people around her, voices chatting, the click of heels on cobblestone, but nobody was shouting or screaming. Nobody was reacting the way Nami would expect if someone pulled a gun on a woman in the middle of the street.
"Start walking," the man said, just loud enough for Nami to hear. He followed his words by using his body to push her where he wanted her to go.
Nami stumbled a bit, but she took a few hesitant steps. There wasn't anything she could do right now. She couldn't reach her clima-tact, and even with it, she wasn't fast enough to dodge a bullet. Right now, her best option was to wait for an opening.
When she didn't move fast enough, her captor's steel-toed boot caught on the back of her shoe, snagging the thin heel strap and scraping off a layer of skin. Nami yelped in surprise and pain, but the sound was muffled by the hand over her mouth. And her captor expressed his displeasure by digging his ragged nails into her cheek.
Nami lost the shoe with her next step, but she struggled to keep pace. Clearly any attempts to drag her feet, literally or otherwise, wouldn't sit well with the man.
Nami couldn't really see which way he was taking her thanks to that strange fog that surrounded them, so she decided to focus on how far and fast they were traveling and which direction they turned. When she managed to get away, she needed to know how to get away from this creep and back to the Sunny.
Nami also needed to figure out why this guy wanted her. It could be for her beri, but she had been careful to make sure nobody was in the shop when she took her payment, and she had hidden most of the money in her bag with the map paper. The rest was in her cleavage, although she suspected this scum wouldn't have a problem man-handling her to get it if he wanted. But why go to this much trouble?
No, the most likely scenario was that he was some bounty hunter who decided her 16,000,000 beri bounty was a nice payday and that she was an easier target than the other members of her crew.
This guy seemed to know where he was going. They had been walking for blocks and blocks, and he never seemed to hesitate over which way to go. He was either very familiar with this town or he had planned this all out well in advance. Neither boded well for her.
Nami grit her teeth. Her feet and legs were killing her. With one foot bare and the other wearing a six-inch heel, it was hard to move quickly. The cobblestone streets of the town had looked pretty, but they were rough and painful on the delicate skin of her feet. And her unnatural gait was putting pressure on places she wasn't used to.
Worse, her captor was clearly taking her away from town. The further they went, the fewer blurry figures she saw and the quieter it got. She could tell they were walking up an incline, and she was fairly certain they were heading toward the large homes on the hill outside town. Nami had seen them when sailing around that side of the island looking for a place to drop anchor.
As Nami took her next step, her bare foot came down awkwardly as her heel hit the cobblestone, but the rest of her foot met air. She tried to catch herself, but she was already misbalanced. As she slipped, her captor's hand clipped her nose, his fingernails cutting the side of her face. As she fell, she felt rock scraping her knees.
"Get up or I shoot," the man said.
"I can't walk like this. At least let me take off my other shoe."
"What?"
"I lost one shoe back there."
"Fine, but make it fast. I prefer you alive, but that doesn't mean I won't shoot you."
Nami pushed herself into a crouch, as she took off her shoe, she took the opportunity to slip a section of her clima-tact free. In one quick motion, she dove to her right, swinging her clima-tact. She heard a satisfying yelp as the metal rod made contact with the man's knee. As Nami rolled away, the rocky ground left painful scrapes along her arms and legs, but she ignored it.
As quickly as she could, Nami pulled the other sections of her clima-tact free and got to her feet. Her attacker had dropped his gun and was clutching his knee, but best of all, the strange fog that had surrounded her had dissipated. With a clear view, Nami confirmed what she suspected, they were on the edge of the town, far from the shopping area and any help. But Nami wasn't waiting around for help or for her attacker to make a move. Out in the open like this, she was an easy target if he got his gun back, unless she had a distraction. She needed to assemble the right configuration quickly and make a mirage tempo. If she was lucky, she could make her escape towards the homes up the hill. If not, the illusions might distract him long enough for her to call up a storm.
The bullet came out of nowhere. Nami hadn't seen or heard anything until it struck her arm. She dropped her clima-tact in surprise, not even sure at first what hit her except that her arm was on fire. On instinct, she grabbed the wound, feeling the blood ooze between her fingers.
"That's enough."
Nami's attention was brought back to her kidnapper. He was clearly favoring his right leg, but he had retrieved his gun, and it was pointed directly at her.
"You're lucky my sniper has better aim than I do. At least that wound's not fatal."
Nami froze. If there was another enemy, one she couldn't see with sights on her, she couldn't get out of this, at least not now. She frowned, trying to at least identify her second attacker, but she didn't have Usopp's gift for calculating someone's location from the speed and trajectory of the projectile.
Nami held up her hands. "I surrender."
"Not like you had a choice."
Nami finally got a good look at the man who had dragged her here. She had guessed his build fairly well, though he looked a little more gaunt than she originally guessed. He was also older if the grey in his beard was any indication. As he limped toward her, she took some small satisfaction in the fact that she hadn't been an easy target.
"Are you after my bounty? That's not really a good idea."
"If it comes to that," the man said as he pulled his left arm back and then slammed the butt of his gun against Nami's temple.
-N-N-N-N-N-
Sanji ran out onto the deck, a chicken leg in one hand. He stopped dead when he only saw his newest nakama.
"Where the hell–"
"Straw Hat and the others took off. He said you and I should stay here in case the girlie comes back."
"Those shit heads left without me?"
"Why the hell are you holding a chicken leg?" Franky asked.
"It was supposed to be a snack for the shitty captain so he wouldn't whine while we looked for Nami-san."
Franky moved over to the cook. "No use letting it go to waste."
Sanji handed it over without protest. Franky was right, and Sanji wasn't in the mood to eat it or take it back to the kitchen.
The cook turned his back on Franky so he could watch the harbor. It was quiet. Other than the Sunny, there was only one other ship docked. It wasn't really surprising since this was a small island with only the one town, as far as they could tell. Sanji remembered that as they sailed around, most of the island had been surrounded by high cliffs. Nami had been concerned about how such a small island would react to a pirate ship, but nobody had taken much notice of them. Or at least that's what Sanji thought. Could there have been some danger here they didn't see?
As Sanji took a deep drag off his cigarette to calm his nerves, Franky suddenly asked, "What's the deal with the girlie?"
"Don't call Nami-san that. She's a lady, not a girlie."
"But, seriously, what's the deal? Straw Hat's the captain, right? At Enies Lobby, I could tell he was in charge, but he seems to let that girl tell everybody what to do."
"I get that you're new," Sanji said, not bothering to turn around, "and we don't act like most crews, but you need to respect Nami-san. Luffy's the captain, and most of the time, he does what Nami-san says."
"But that's not SUPER. The captain's in charge on a pirate ship, not the navigator. And Luffy's gonna be king of the pirates, so he's got to be SUPER in charge."
"Luffy may not be the smartest guy ever, but he's smart enough to know that he can't do everything alone. He doesn't tell me how to cook or Chopper how to be a good doctor. He won't tell you how to take care of the Sunny. He picked us for his crew because he trusts us to do our jobs. He trusts us to be the best crew to help him become the pirate king. And he trusts Nami-san to navigate the ship and take care of us."
"Then what does Straw Hat do?"
Sanji chuckled. "Whatever Luffy wants."
Franky came over to stand next to Sanji, waiting in silence as the cook finished his cigarette. As Sanji fished out another one, he said, barely loud enough for Franky to hear, "Luffy always does the right thing when it matters most."
-N-N-N-N-N-
"This is where Nami and I split up."
"You're certain?" Robin asked.
"Yeah." Usopp pointed to a store window across the dark street. "I remember that store because Nami made a big deal about how good she looked in that blue dress, the one in the window. But then she decided not to buy it."
"Tell us exactly what happened."
"We talked about heading back to the ship, but Nami had to buy some, uh, girl stuff, so she told me to go back without her."
"Chopper?"
At Zoro's voice, the reindeer looked up from where he had been sniffing the street, intent on trying to find the right trail.
"There are too many scents. I can't find Nami's."
"It's only to be expected," Robin said as she placed a hand on Chopper's neck. "It's been some time since she was last here."
"I'll keep trying."
Turning back to Usopp, Robin asked, "Which way did she go?"
Usopp pointed up the street and the group moved forward as one, their steps echoing loudly in the near silence. There were few people out now that it was dark, and the only businesses still open were the restaurants and bars. Worse, Luffy was oddly quiet, and it made the worry stirring in Usopp's gut ratchet up another notch.
"I should have watched which way she went after that," Usopp whispered.
Zoro walked beside Luffy, one hand on Wado's hilt and senses alert. He strained to hear Nami's voice or catch a glimpse of orange hair. He also kept an eye on his captain. Something was clearly bothering him, and Zoro was certain he knew what it was. It was the same thing gnawing at his own gut.
Robin was rarely wrong.
"Oi, Zoro, where are you going?" Usopp called.
Zoro turned around to realize the rest of his hopeless crew had wandered off. He was about to remind them they needed to stay focused when Chopper suddenly trotted past him.
"Chopper!"
"I recognize this place. I was here yesterday with Nami," the reindeer called out as he stopped in front of a shop that, like almost all the others on this street, was closed. He looked up the street, and before the others could catch up, Chopper was off again.
"Oi, Chopper," Zoro called out, not wanting the doctor to get too far ahead of them.
"This is the place where Nami bought the special paper," Chopper said. "Maybe she came back to get more for her maps."
"But why would she tell me she was buying girl things?" Usopp asked.
"Is that really what she said?" Robin asked.
Usopp frowned and he was silent for a moment before saying, "No. No, she said she had 'personal' shopping to do."
"And you just assumed," Robin said.
"Yeah, I guess. But she practically forced me to go back to the Sunny without her." Usopp dropped his eyes to the street. "Why would she do that if she was just buying paper?"
"Do you think Nami left?"
All eyes turned to Luffy. It was the first thing he had said since entering town, and it wrenched Usopp's heart. Even if nobody had actually said anything directly about it since his apology and return, Usopp knew that his fight with Luffy and abandonment of the crew had hurt his nakama more than they let on. Nami's reaction earlier today had been proof of that. And now Luffy. Luffy, who had absolute faith in Nami.
"No," Usopp said with all the conviction he felt. "Nami didn't leave. I know she didn't. She said something…made me promise…so I know she didn't leave."
Zoro bumped Luffy's arm. "That woman wouldn't leave without taking the Sunny and all the treasure she could find."
Luffy looked between Usopp and Zoro and smiled. Maybe it wasn't as wide and carefree as usual, but Usopp still thought it was the most reassuring thing in the world.
"Oi, oi, I found something," Chopper called, and the three young men looked up to see their archeologist crouched next to the reindeer further up the street.
"It's Nami's shoe," Robin said as she stood and held up a ridiculously high heel.
"You're sure?" Zoro asked.
"It smells like Nami," Chopper said, nodding his head. "The strap is broken. Maybe…maybe she fell and hurt herself. She could have sprained her ankle or something. That's why she was late."
"Why wouldn't she just go back to the Sunny?" Usopp asked.
"Maybe she couldn't." Chopper suddenly shifted from Walk Point to Brain Point and began fluttering around the loose circle the others had formed. "What if she's really hurt? She could have broken her ankle or hit her head or–"
"Calm down," Zoro said, placing a firm hand on the top of the reindeer's pink hat to get him to stay still.
"If she was injured, then someone must have seen something. Perhaps she was taken to the local doctor." Robin handed the shoe to Usopp, who placed it in his bag. "I suggest we split up. There aren't many places still open, but we can ask about both Nami and the town doctor."
"I'll go with Luffy." Usopp pulled some flares out of his bag and handed one to Zoro. "We can signal if we find her."
"Chopper, please go with Zoro."
"I don't need a babysitter."
"Why, whoever said you did?" Robin smirked. "I simply think it would be best if Chopper stays in his full reindeer form since he is more likely to catch our navigator's scent that way. That means he will need you to carry the flare and speak to the townspeople. As wonderful as our doctor is, most people would find a talking reindeer shocking, even in the Grand Line."
"I'm not wonderful, you dummy," Chopper said before changing to Walk Point.
"Robin, come with us," Usopp said, figuring there was strength in numbers.
Robin shook her head. "I think it's best if we split into three groups. We can cover more ground that way."
"Be careful," Usopp said as he handed Robin a flare.
"Meet back on the Sunny by second watch if you don't find anything," Zoro said.
"We're gonna find Nami," Luffy said with his usual confidence.
-N-N-N-N-N-
"Oi, have you seen my navigator?" Luffy shouted as he entered what could only generously be called a restaurant.
Several heads turned his way, but most of the patrons just ignored him.
"Oi!"
"Luffy, they don't know who Nami is. We've got to describe her," Usopp said, trying to direct his captain to the bar.
"I did. I told them she's my navigator."
Usopp just ignored Luffy, walking up to the bartender instead. "We're looking for a friend. She's about this tall," he said, holding up his hand. "She's got orange hair and a tattoo on her left shoulder. Have you seen her?"
"Don't know. You buying anything?"
"Meat," Luffy said.
Usopp turned and hissed at Luffy, "Do you even have any money? Because I don't."
Luffy frowned.
"That's what I thought. Besides, we aren't here to eat. We need to find Nami."
"Yeah, but I'm hungry." Just then, Luffy's stomach growled so loudly, the patrons on either side of them heard it and turned to stare.
"Look, we ain't running a charity here," the bartender said as he poured a drink. "Are you buying something or what?"
"No, look, we just need to know about our friend."
"I haven't seen anyone like that, but I just came on shift."
Luffy jumped up on the bar, knocking over several drinks and earning angry shouts from the bartender and the patrons.
"I'm looking for my navigator," Luffy shouted, the way he did when he was in the middle of a battle. He shot out his rubber arm and pulled Usopp up on the bar with him. "Tell 'em."
Usopp swallowed, all eyes now on him and Luffy. He took a deep breath and repeated the description he'd given the bartender. "If you've seen her in the last hour or so, we need to know."
There was some mumbling, but nobody offered up any information.
"What about a doctor? Do you have one in town? She might be hurt?"
"Get the hell off my bar," the bartender said as he shoved at Usopp's and Luffy's legs. "Doc's got an office down the end of the street, just before you get to the homes. If she's got a patient, she's probably there. Otherwise, she's at home."
"Thanks, old guy," Luffy said as he and Usopp jumped down from the bar. His stomach growled again. "Can I get some meat?"
"Get the hell out!"
Usopp barely dodged the shot glass that came flying at his head. He made a quick bow of thanks to the bartender, then grabbed Luffy and ran out the door.
-N-N-N-N-N-
Chopper walked along the cobblestone street, Zoro's hand resting on his back. The reindeer had insisted after Zoro wandered off twice in under two blocks. The directionally challenged swordsman had complained, but he finally agreed when Chopper pointed out they didn't have time to spend chasing each other down when they were supposed to be looking for Nami.
Chopper felt like he was failing in that. Everyone was counting on him and his reindeer senses to find their missing nakama. So far, all Chopper had found was her shoe. Sanji had once asked Chopper what Nami and Robin smelled like, and the reindeer had tried to explain it in a way that a humans could understand. The closest he had come for Nami was the scent of mikan and gold, but there was also an underlying scent that a human nose just couldn't pick up, something that was unique to her and different than anything else in the world. Chopper would give almost anything to smell that right now.
Even better would be knowing that Nami was safe on the Sunny or with their other nakama. Chopper kept an ear out for the sound of fireworks, hoping that someone had found her, but there was nothing.
Zoro didn't notice Chopper's distress since he was focused on trying to rein in Kitetsu's bloodlust, and the swordsman wasn't entirely certain that it wasn't responding to his own unease. One of Zoro's nakama was missing, possibly injured. Zoro hadn't been this worried about her since Alabasta, when Nami had to face off alone against Miss Double Finger. And the longer it took to find her, the more Zoro suspected that something other than a bad fall had happened. If it turned out that Nami had been attacked, Zoro was content to let Kitetsu taste the blood it desired.
"What do we do if Nami isn't with the doctor?" Chopper asked in a whisper.
"We keep looking," Zoro said.
Zoro and Chopper had stopped in four places so far with no luck. The restaurant Zoro had visited the day before had nearly thrown him out this time for bringing in a wild animal. Introducing the waiter to Wado had solved that issue. In one of the bars, a woman wearing less than Nami usually did had offered to help him relax for a ridiculous amount of beri. In the third place, one drunken idiot thought he might have seen Nami, but he couldn't be sure unless Zoro could give him her cup size. Zoro had snarled at the man, who sobered up just enough to tell Zoro that he saw a girl matching Nami's description with a big metal guy and a pet tanuki the day before. Zoro stomped out in frustration. The only thing that would have made his night worse was if the pervert cook had been with him.
The last place they went in had been some fancy restaurant, the kind that had more forks and spoons than they had diners. Chopper had transformed into his smaller form before they went it, but that didn't help at all. The guy who greeted them had assumed he and Chopper were lost and tried to direct them back to a more appropriate establishment. After the waiter guy got over his shock at a talking tanuki, Chopper turned up the cuteness and convinced the man to talk to the staff and guests on their behalf. It had all been a waste of time when it turned out nobody had seen their navigator.
The only useful information they got was that the only doctor on the island lived up in the hills outside of the main part of town. Apparently her office was on the opposite end, so he and Chopper decided to try the woman's home first.
The further they walked, the darker it got as Zoro and Chopper left the downtown area behind them. Zoro could see dim lights in the distance, probably shining through the windows of the homes up on the hill. But with barely a sliver of moonlight above them, the street was almost pitch black. Zoro stretched out his other senses, listening for the telltale sounds that someone was close by or the feeling of hostile intent.
The only things he heard were the clip-clop of hooves on the cobblestone and the soft snorts as Chopper sniffed the ground.
Zoro felt Chopper tense under his hand, and then the reindeer was off.
"Oi!"
"Nami," Chopper called, and that was enough to set the swordsman in motion.
Zoro ran to catch up, but he hadn't gotten far when Chopper stopped at the point where the street turned, doubling back slightly as it moved away from the cliffs that ringed most of the island. Chopper inhaled deeply several times before moving off the street and onto the rocky ground.
Zoro looked around. It was mostly wide open, although there were a few low bushes that could provide cover for an ambush, especially in the dark. But the swordsman didn't sense anyone nearby.
"Zoro, I found Nami's shoe."
Zoro bent to pick up what was basically a high-heeled sandal. He held it up, trying to catch whatever light he could. He noticed that unlike the previous shoe, which was broken, this one had been unbuckled.
"No, no, no!"
Zoro looked up to see Chopper had moved further away. He was pawing at the ground and moaning, and when Zoro joined him, he understood why. Nami's clima-tact lay on the ground, two of the ends connected and the other an arm's distance away.
"Shit."
As Zoro bent to pick up the pieces, Chopper said, "I smell blood."
"Nami's? Where?"
"Right here," Chopper said as he pawed at the rocks. "I can't tell whose. It's faint, so I don't think it was a lot, but…"
"Shit." Zoro drew Kitetsu. "Can you follow her scent?"
"I…I think so," Chopper said. "It's faint, but there aren't a lot of other scents like back in town."
"How many others?"
"A few on the street, but only two others over here." Chopper scrunched up his nose. "They smell really bad."
"Alright, follow the scent, but don't rush off."
"Should we signal the others?"
"Not yet," Zoro said, lowering his voice. "We don't want to give ourselves away if they're close."
Chopper bent his head, sniffing at the ground. He must have picked up the scent again because he started moving towards the cliff edge. Zoro followed, and soon they were walking down a winding trail of rock and sand.
Chopper stopped. "I lost Nami's scent," he whispered, "but the two smelly people went this way."
"Keep going."
"Don't get lost," Chopper said.
Zoro didn't bother with an answer, giving Chopper a gentle nudge forward.
As they slowly made their way down the trail, Zoro caught sight of a small beach that was only visible from certain points. Zoro hunched over, trying to make himself less visible as they approached the tiny beach. As Chopper reached the point where the trail merged with soft sand, Zoro tapped him gently. As the reindeer turned, Zoro waved for him to move next to the cliff wall. Zoro silently moved past, senses alert for anything, but it didn't take long for him to realize they were alone.
Zoro sheathed his sword, and Chopper took that as a sign it was safe. The doctor sniffed the ground for a few moments, edging closer to the ocean waves that lapped at the sand.
"Anything?" Zoro asked, though he suspected he knew the answer.
Chopper looked up, tears rolling down his snout. "The scents just disappear."
"Shit."
to be continued
Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who posted reviews to the last chapter. You really motivated me to keep going. I hope you enjoy this chapter. If you didn't, that's okay. Just let me know so I can do better.