Hope you all enjoy!
TW for violence and gore in this chapter!
Nami POV:
Nami watches them go but only for a second. Then she is crossing the deck in long strides towards the infirmary. A ladder of arms bloom from the mast as Robin descends from the crow's nest. She is a much better field nurse than Nami. So is Brook. But Brook is taking Robin's place in the crow's nest, setting up the guard. He's the most tactical fighter they have left right now, so the defence goes primarily to him, with Franky backing him up.
Nami had known it would go this way. Had known she would be needed in the infirmary. It still feels like a punch to the gut. It always does. It's why she's only a mediocre assistant to Chopper.
But as brilliant as their doctor was, sometimes even he needed an extra set of hands. So Nami steels herself and walks into the infirmary, Robin right behind her.
"Scrub," Chopper says without even looking up.
Nami scrubs her hands clean furiously in the little sink in the corner of the infirmary before donning gloves and approaching the bed.
"Oh Sanji-kun," is her first thought. Her vision blurs and she blinks hard. No. She cannot. Not yet. Not here.
An extra hand sprouts from her arm and squeezes her shoulder reassuringly. She throws Robin a grateful glance, tucks the part of her that wants to fall to her knees and scream and cry and rage, all the way down, and squares her shoulders.
"Where do you need us, Chopper?"
Her nakama need her and she will not let them down.
Chopper has them strip the rest of Sanji-kun's clothing off. He's managed to get the remnants of his shirt off but it had taken some time, the material sticking to the myriad of wounds that crossed the cook's torso.
Every inch of skin that is revealed tests Nami's resolve to not burst into tears. Aside from where the skin had been rubbed clean off by what had to be manacles, his legs are black and blue from hits. Some of them are familiar injuries. She's seen Sanji-kun nurse similar ones after a fight, so clearly their cook had not gone down easily.
In fact, she's not even sure how they could have taken him down. Sanji-kun can be a little ridiculous sometimes but he's also absolutely terrifying. To take him down, and do it quietly enough that it didn't alert any of them was a feat in an off itself.
Chopper answers her inner musings in the next moment.
"Damn it!" the doctor says vehemently, startling both her and Robin. "They drugged him with something," he said.
"Is it going to be a problem Doctor-san?" Robin asks. The ice in her voice sends shivers down Nami's spine.
"In the long run, no," Chopper says. "But I can't give him anaesthetic with it in his system."
Nami forces herself to look at the stump Chopper is treating.
"If…if you can't give him anaesthetic," she starts, voice wavering.
"I can't do surgery," Chopper says. "He's unconscious but's he's going to wake up when I start cutting."
"Cutting?!" Nami almost doesn't recognize her voice. She hears Robin's voice echo her question.
Chopper's eyes are hooded. "There's infection setting in here," he says quietly. "It wasn't a clean amputation and it wasn't treated properly. I need to cut off the parts that are infected until I have clean margins and I need to do it soon before he loses even more of the arm."
Nami doesn't understand all of the medical jargon but she understands enough. She wants to throw up.
His hands.
Sanji-kun's poor hands.
His other one isn't even spared. There are several deep cuts along his right forearm, like someone had run the blade right down it.
Oh, his hands.
Sanji-kun is a terrifying fighter but at his heart he is a chef. He values his hands, his ability to cook, above all else.
He is always so careful about his hands.
They are all aways so stupidly careful about his hands.
Sanji-kun's hands.
"Breathe, navigator-san" Robin says, even if she sounds more choked up than Nami has ever heard her. Nami drags in a breath and grabs hold of her spiralling thoughts.
"There has to be something," she says.
"There is," Chopper says. While she'd been freaking out, he'd been working with practiced speed. There's an IV hanging, turning a faint yellow as Chopper injects antibiotics into it. There is also a bag of blood, one of Sanji's. Chopper had insisted they all store bags of their own blood in case of an emergency. He'd been right of course.
"We're doing the surgery anyway," the reindeer continues.
"Doctor-san!" Robin says, a strong note of protest in her voice.
"I'm giving him anaesthetic," he says in reply to Robin's concern. "But we're going to have to monitor him very carefully. I cannot put off this operation. Nami come here." "You remember how to bag?"
"Yes," she says taking the little device from Chopper, meant to force air into a person's lungs.
"I need you to monitor his breathing and pulse. It they get too high or too low, tell me," Chopper instructs. "I'll need to move fast to reverse any ill effects. Robin," he adds, "I'll need a few extra hands."
"I have as many as you need Doctor-san," Robin replies, jaw tight.
"Good," Chopper says. "Let's get to work now."
It's not difficult to find them. All she has to do is go in the direction of the smoke.
Her walk through the town is quiet. It is still very early, but she is sure that usually there'd be lights coming on in windows by now in the pre-dawn dark. But the streets remain dark. A forced quiet. Like a prey animal remining as small and as silent as it can in order to avoid notice.
Good.
She knows she is almost there when she starts passing bodies. Most of them are alive. Some of them are not. All of them are injured. The jury is out on how many of them still alive will survive their injuries.
The boys are usually destructive but today, today they'd been especially focused. Some of the bodies had hands missing entirely, sliced off with the precision only a master swordsman can muster.
Others, others are crying, moaning over blackened stumps, the natural outcome of human flesh meeting a souped-up fire star.
And the rest? The rest have things that might have been hands but are only now pulped flesh and bone, not even fit to feed dogs. Her captain has always been very strong.
Luffy is sitting on the lip of a well, hat still shadowing his eyes, Zoro and Usopp leaning next to him. They are waiting.
"He's stable," she says into the silence. "Chopper thinks it might still be a little rough because he's running a fever, but he should make it fine."
She feels the shift in the air. The lightening breath.
"Thank you Nami," Luffy says, quietly. It is a thunder that shakes the entire square they're standing in.
"Oh course, Captain," she replies. She opens her mouth to say something but movement in her periphery distracts her.
One of the bounty hunters is trying to get up. To crawl away. Judging by his clothes and the impressive face swelling, he must have been the leader. Luffy had obviously punched the man into oblivion. But he was awake now and trying to run.
Nami steps up to Zoro and pulls Wado from its sheath. He lets her without a word. Her steps are soft and purposeful. The leader looks up in fear when her shadow falls over him. In another time, she might have been afraid of him.
But that was before he hurt her nakama.
Wado flashes in the pale pre-dawn before she brings it down.
She knows the right angle to use, she's seen Zoro do it a hundred times, had sat through his carefully explanation about difference technique makes when it comes to getting katana to slice straight through something.
Wado's blade slices the man's fingers clean off. Then his wrist. Then his forearm, then his elbow, his bicep, before she finally cleaves it entirely from his shoulder.
The man is screaming, but she only hears it distantly. He scrambles back, trying to escape her but she steps forward, her heel coming down on the fingers of his remaining hand, halting him in his flight.
Wado flashes again and again, until the man is lying on his back, sans arms, gurgling into unconsciousness. And her throat is sore and her face is wet and the echoes of her screams are still bouncing around the square.
Nami comes back to herself hunched over, knees bent, Wado's tip in the dirt, red splattered all over her, breathing hard for a long moment. Then she straightens up, whips Wado sharply to the side to clear it of blood and walks back to the others.
She hands Zoro his sword and he takes it without comment, sliding it back into its sheath.
Nami takes another deep breath and then says. "There's some things Chopper needs before we set sail. He sent a list. And…And I have a list of what we need for the pantry too," she adds.
"Usopp and I will get Chopper's things," Luffy says. Usopp takes the list from her as her captain hops off the well. "Zoro, go with Nami."
"Aye," The swordsman says.
They split up then. It doesn't take them long to get what they need. None of the stores are open but that doesn't matter. No one stops them and they leave no money behind.
They are pirates and they are not kind today.
The sun is already rising by the time they are sailing out of the harbour.
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