Hi everyone! Here is the newest chapter. And the longest one yet.
And the first one with Nami.
(Yay!)
Thank you to everyone who read/followed/faved/reviewed so far (it really is a pleasure), and without further ado...
Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, so anything that you see in this fic and that you can recognise as belonging to One Piece is not mine. If I did own it, I wouldn't have to write fanfiction. Duh.
Part One - Dive|rgence
FOUR
You aren't kind,
(not really, or you wouldn't be able
to wear a smile so violent
and drench your voice and fists in others' blood
like this)
But there is something in you,
something disugusting
in the sincerity of your smile
in the reliable line of your shoulders
in the wholeness of your attention
(And I so dearly hate
the way I cannot despise you on sight)
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Her Captain is lucky to be such a deep sleeper, because she is so glaring at him right now.
Well… Honestly, it's her fault. They divided the night in three time slots for the watch. She chose the last one, both because she is an early riser and because she has yet to learn to read the time in the sky. And she completely forgot who exactly she was travelling with… which means that when Luffy woke her up in the early hours of the morning for her shift -by falling dead asleep on top of her and almost giving her a heart attack in the process, she discovered (oh joy) that the stock of food she managed to gather in Shells Town was thouroughly raided during the night.
Her stomach growls again, and when her eyes sweep across the blue expanse surrounding them, well she sees nothing. Again.
… Yeah, that was a stupid, thoughtless move on her part.
But now that she experienced it once, she's pretty sure that it won't happen again if she has a say in it (although it's a small comfort right now, because she loves her breakfast, damnit).
Her eyes turn back to the newspaper of the day. There are a lot of places and people whose name don't ring a bell, but if there is one thing good about newspapers, it is that they usually give that information at some point in the article, even when every reader probably knows it.
Also, the flying postmen (and women, she hopes) are very cute.
She's looking at the wanted posters inserted in the newspaper when Zoro wakes up with a loud yawn.
"Mind passing me some food? I'm starving."
She gestures vaguely with her foot in the direction of their Captain.
"He ate just about everything for his midnight snack."
...
"Ow! Zoro! What was that for?!"
That earns him another fist upside the head.
She knew it was worth waiting. She certainly can't hit as hard as Zoro.
"Annnnnn! Help meeee!"
"I really don't see what the problem is." Elynna hums in perfect dishonesty, still hidden behind her newspaper.
Luffy's final cry for help morphs into an unintelligible gurgling sound.
Revenge is sweet.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"This one."
"Fish!"
"Good. That one?"
"Meat!" The emphasis is particularly strong there.
"Nice."
She points to another picture of the newspaper's article on a culinary contest.
"... Cakey?"
"Cake." She repeats, trying very, very hard not to laugh.
The Japanese accent in English is about as hilarious as the French one -but less irritating.
Her finger lands on yet another part of the picture.
"Sake!"
"We have sake?"
"Go back to sleep, Zoro-san. Not exactly, Captain."
"Ah, beel- beew?"
"Beer."
"Beer." He repeats with great focus.
(It really shouldn't be this cute.)
"The last try was perfect."
"Yay! I got them all!"
Her smile is polite, dull, and meaningless -just the way he hates it.
"You also ate them all."
His arms fall back down, and he flops forward until his head bonks on the newspaper displayed between the two of them.
She wants a fucking medal for resisting the urge to run her fingers through his hair, especially when they tickle her hand that is still on the page like that and oh my gawd, how can they be this soft-
"I'm hungryyyyyyy…"
Ah, yeah. She's supposed to be pissed off.
Right.
"Really?" She makes her smile extra plastic, just in case he looks up. "What a coincidence, Zoro-san and I have been thinking the exact same thing since we woke up this morning and could not eat anything for breakfast."
Luffy moans again. Louder.
Zoro snickers from his place on the other side of the boat.
"You're evil." He comments, not lifting a finger to stop her.
"Thank you." She replies, absolutely serious and voice as dry as can be.
Luffy sniffles, and finally raises his gaze to hers-
She never understood how the phrase 'puppy eyes' could apply to humans before.
Now?
Now she does, and she's a fucking goner.
(Don't cave in, don't cave in, don't. Cave. In.
You've got to show him who's the one giving orders-
Even though he's the Captain but semantics-
Shut. Up. Brain.)
She never thought that being more soft-hearted towards pets than humans could end up being a weakness.
Luffy cranks up the power (oh my fucking goddess, he's adding the tears, that little shit) and juts out his lower lip.
"I'm really sorry, Ann…"
She somehow manages to wrangle her rationality back into the control seat of her brain, and widens her smile just a tiny bit more so that a victorious flash of teeth appears.
"Oh, you don't have to."
He blinks, taken aback.
"I should have taken into account the size of your appetite -and your lack of planning skills. I will try and make sure that this doesn't happen again."
Zoro raises a brow at that.
"Weren't you trying to get him to say sorry?"
"Nah. I'm just a mildly sadistic and completely resentful bitch. Who just happens to be hungry."
"At least you're aware of it."
"And that is when you're supposed to deny my obviously low opinion of myself, and encourage me to think more positively and list at least ten things that I've done right in the day before going to bed."
"Do I look like a goddamn shrink to you?"
"Um… Well, it's true that your face is a bit too scary for that."
"Fuck you."
"Sure, but could we do it later? Cause I'm not really into public s-"
Zoro sputters, boot-clad foot slipping on the deck to hit her thigh, sending her sprawling on her side with the force of it -and the help of a well-timed wave.
Luffy, whose smile was a bit confused up till now, bursts out laughing.
"Senseless violence." Elynna groans dramatically.
"Senseless my ass. Serves you right."
She refrains from making a comment about his ass just in time, deeming him not above kicking a woman when she's down at the moment.
She just knew that honour was synonymous with machism.
So instead, she stands up and strips.
Luffy blinks, but doesn't offer any other reaction, going back to making splashes with his feet in the water instead.
On the other hand, Zoro's face, which was just starting to cool down, turns a violent red again, and he looks away so fast that she's pretty sure she heard his bones crack, expression positively horrified.
She feels so appreciated.
Butterflies in her stomach and all that.
Really.
"W- What the hell are you doing?!"
"... I'm stripping?" She answers, tone faux-innocent as she puts her jeans and top back into her bag to try and protect them from the water, letting her hair down from its bun.
"I meant why, damnit!"
Now you're just asking for it, babe.
"Calm down, honey." She replies, voice sickeningly sweet and face so blank she could only be teasing, but it still leaves the swordsman gaping at the bold use of the petname. "I told you I don't like it in public. I'm just going to swim a bit…" And then she raises an eyebrow, eyes smug and smirking. "Why? Were you expecting another answer?"
She barely evades the still-tied spare rope that he chucks at her face, but in doing so she loses her balance and falls face first into the sea, her Captain's renewed laughter echoing in her ears.
Is her brand of humour too complex for him to follow, or is this just favouritism?
(She might not be supposed to be here, but he still wants her on his crew, right?
Even if she is so dull, especially now that Zoro is there to set a standard that she will probably never match-
She's not asking for too much after all, right? No love, no affection, no praise-
Just basic respect
And for them to let her encroach upon their lives like the parasite she is-)
She consoles herself by deciding that their Captain simply took pity on Zoro, and so he only laughs at his actions rather than hers.
(Now she just has to convince herself of it, beyond the superficial joke with herself.
Since Zoro can't play shrink, she has to take care of her self-esteem on her own, after all.
Though she still thinks that bringing it down is better than an overblown ego, so she'll just make sure that she doesn't compliment herself too much, or insults herself enough to compensate, like always.)
She catches the rope on the way up, and asks for Luffy's help to untie it and loop it around her waist and torso and to the boat so that, in the case they have to leave in a hurry and she doesn't have the time to swim back, she isn't left behind -or breaks her spine.
The water is so clear that she can't quite force herself into closing her eyes, even though she knows it's not the best for her vision.
(This isn't really her body, after all,
and if it can lift a wooden plank on which a dozen people are running -with their weapons, then it can take a bit of salty water, especially since everyone in this world probably ends up in the sea at some point in their life.)
She smiles, eyes opened wide to take in the view of all the fishes and seaweed that are swimming and floating around her-
the memory is a bit blurry, and faded,
like something old.
It's a human child -probably. (The red nose isn't something they've really seen before.)
He's drowning.
Of course he is.
Despite the passage of time, the sense of disgust is neither blurry nor faded.
The children of that one are so arrogant, to think that they might be able to have everything.
That there would be no retaliation.
An eye for an eye, isn't that right?
But then a new human comes in to drag that one's child up, and this one is clean. Pure.
And oh, his lifeforce looks just delicious.
So they let the devil's seed go.
They get used to the sight of him in their territory.
And they wait.
For the day when they can rip out this weed.
Her head breaks through the surface, breath heavy and eyes flickering aimlessly around her.
But there's nothing.
No one.
Just her, the sea, and the fishes.
Her stomach twists and turns, and her bones rattle as she gnaws at her lower and then upper lip, tearing away bits and pieces of skin that burn like acid under the kiss of the salt.
What-
She feels the rope suddenly go tight.
She just has the time to take a deep breath and think oh, fuck-
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
"Hey, you managed to climb on? Your skills aren't half-bad…"
"Were you trying to kill us?!"
The three newcomers sit back down, panting even more after that outburst.
They are quick to get their breath, though, and they are about to stand up again-
When a hand slams onto the ledge of the boat.
A white, blue-tinted hand.
Followed by a long, dark halo of hair that floats around and sticks to a whitewhitewhite face, in which two black holes are embedded instead of eyes-
They scream.
"A g- g- gho-gho-gho- ghost!"
The ghost coughs, sounding for all the world like they might spit out their lungs in the process.
"The hell…" Elynna wheezes, "was that for?"
"Ah, sorry. Luffy tried to get a bird for lunch, but got stuck in its beak, so I'm trying to catch up." Zoro explains, still rowing furiously.
His tone sounds anything but sorry, and awfully vindictive on top of it.
(Well, she was the one who allowed boredom to make her speak more freely -again.
At least he doesn't look truly angry or disgusted with her jokes.)
If she still had any breath left in her, Elynna would laugh, because, well, the situation is quite funny.
As it is though, she's too busy trying to lift herself back onto the fast-moving boat with the trembling noodles that she calls her arms.
… And the blades that are suddenly thrusted under her nose, one of them almost slitting her throat open right off the bat.
"Stop the boat! This is Captain Buggy's territory, and we're taking it!"
She barely has the time to study her reflection on the blades before the three men are... convinced to let go of them and keep rowing in Zoro's place, who sits down near her spot so that she can come out of the water without any further threat on her life.
She grabs the faded Marine uniform and puts it on over her jungle green bikini (there's no need to soak another outfit in seawater, after all) and ties her hair up again after wringing some water out of it.
The three pirates are quick to pour out excuses and attempts to flatter the swordsman -even though he's supposed to be her underling.
(She doesn't hold it against them.
Even she can't really make herself believe it.)
"We're really sorry! If we knew you were Roronoa Zoro, we would've never attacked your girlfriend!"
"Um. I don't think we're really at that stage. Yet."
"The fuck are you saying?!" Zoro, who was about to snap at them, directs his ire at her instead, since she feels the need to open her mouth again and blabber nonsensical things.
"Your days of celibacy are numbered, Zoro-san." She drawls blankly.
"You have no business phrasing that so threateningly."
Her smile is bland, but there is enjoyment in her eyes -it's not often that people respond to her humour with something witty rather than simple embarassment or anger (which, to be objective, is understandable).
"It's a talent of mine. Just keep watching them, sweetheart."
"Do it yourself." He scoffs, but his lips are twitching all the same, barely holding back an amused smirk.
She lifts a finger, ready to use her best impersonation of a I-know-everything-so-don't-you-dare-contradict-me voice.
"Rule Number One of dating: gentleman behaviour."
He snorts without even attempting to take her seriously.
"Are you for real?"
She brings her hands behind her to lean on them, crossing her legs at the ankle.
"Nah. It was just a nice word for sexism anyway. The last time a guy tried that on me, I kicked him."
(Is she exagerrating? Of course.
Does the point still stand? Fuck yes.)
"At least there's still hope for your fighting capabilities."
"And for your complementing abilities. It's probably a big part of dating too."
"Oi, why do you think I haven't thrown you three overboard yet?! Keep rowing towards the closest island!"
Buggy's three subordinates speed up their rowing.
…
So are they a couple or not?
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
By the time they reach the so-called closest island -which apparently just so happens to also be the current base of the trio's Captain, both Zoro and Elynna have heard all about the (pretty) thieving bitch who can predict the weather and stole their loot ("Don't look so offended, you also stole it in the first place.") and this Buggy 'The Clown' guy.
The nickname makes something shift in her mind, unearthing a few, crumpled memories of what she's sure is a pretty big and important arc of the anime, but she can't remember much more than some of his most noticeable features… including his nose.
The shiver that runs up her spine has nothing to do with the wet clothes that stick to her skin.
These sea dreams seem to come with an awfully convenient timing, and although they might prove useful, she's not sure that she likes their possible meaning.
She is barely stepping out of their boat when the three run away. Neither her nor Zoro pay much attention to them.
Instead, he taps the hilt of one of his katanas against the juncture of his shoulder pensively, and turns to her.
"Should we go meet that Buggy guy?"
She stares back, a weight of lead falling through her as she realises that he expects her to decide where to go and what to do and how to do it and-
Her teeth clamp down on her lower lip until the still-fresh cuts she made bleed.
If she follows the One Piece logic…
She starts walking in the direction the three others took.
"Maybe not meet him, but we should probably at least go and see for ourselves what kind of guy he is. At the very least, we'll get information on one of the Captain's potential rivals. At best, that bird didn't change directions since we lost him, and the Captain most likely found a way to get back on land, in which case he's probably already raised hell and landed himself in some near-death situation."
"Fair enough." Zoro smirks in amusement. "And that girl? If she can guess and use the weather to her advantage like that, she could make a good navigator."
"I guess we could always ask her if we end up meeting her." She hums, not completely sure yet if they are talking about the actual navigator of the Straw Hat Pirates -one thing that's for sure is that the latter is definitely pretty. "The fact that she's pretty and fun is just a huge bonus in her favour."
He scoffs incredulously under his breath.
"Someone who manipulates people? That's your idea of fun?"
"Hell yeah, as long as I'm not the one being played into giving up everything I have."
"You are such a bitch."
She doesn't answer, because just then a blast echoes through the air, followed by a wave of heat and dust.
Instinctively she crouches down, hands flattened against her ears in a vain attempt to block out the pandemonium that is booming through her body, feeling each organ vibrate sickinengly in the rattling embrace of her bones which seems ready to dislocate and fall apart-
Two warm, larger hands cover hers and eventually force them away from her skull despite her struggle, before one hand firmly takes hold of her lower face and forces her to lift her head, which is when she realises that she has sealed her eyes shut at some point so she forces herself to open them but her vision is swimming and she can't see-
Her hands are trembling and have no strength and she's pretty sure that she would topple over if the other person wasn't supporting her (her father? Zoro? A classmate? Jamie? Who is Zoro? Where is she, she can't remember, can't think, can't breathe-) but why is her body still vibrating? Why does she feel so hot and cold and soaked in sweat? What happened? Why are her ears ringing and she's pretty sure that they're talking to her but she can't hear anything-
"Elynna!"
And suddenly her vision clears, and her eyes meet those, hesitant (almost frantic-) of Zoro, and she gasps, taking in a lungful of air and then some, throat and lungs burning under the the cool caress of it, like she stopped breathing for whatever amount of time she spent trapped in the aimless circles of her own mind -she probably has.
She remembers where she is (although not why, if there even is a why, because she has no reason to be here), remembers what they came to this island for, remembers the explosion.
She breathes again, willing herself to make it less shaky, and runs a hand over face to take away the cold sheen of sweat that covers it, then back over her neck to hide the fact that it's still shaking too.
She gulps several times despite how dry and sore her throat feels, until she doesn't feel like the only sound she can make is a frail whisper -as frayed as her still shaken mind.
"Wanna bet that we'll find the Captain if we go wherever this came from?"
Zoro's lips thin as his eyebrows furrow, the metallic grey of his eyes still staring at her, but if there's one thing good about his code of behaviour in that moment, it's that he doesn't like people prying into his business when he doesn't offer to talk about it first, and especially so when it comes to his weaknesses.
So he does the same for her, doesn't ask questions and doesn't make comments, rising silently to his feet.
She tries to do the same, and immediately trips over her own feet like a newborn fawn, almost falling over in the process before he clasps his hand over her forearm to steady her.
She screws her eyes shut to stop the world from spinning, and breathes out slowly.
"Unless it would slow you down too much, I think a piggyback ride is going to be in order if we want to be there before we get wrinkles."
"Stop making weird jokes and get on already."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
When Zoro eventually reaches the rooftop of the building next to that of the bar from which the only noise of the town is coming, Elynna feels a lot better, and signals to him to let her down.
She sighs in relief internally when she finds herself able to stand on her own two feet without any dizziness, and comes to a stop next to Zoro to observe what is happening on the neighbouring roof, which reaches a slightly lower level than the one he chose.
It's rather easy to grasp most of the situation.
Luffy is in a cage, which a cannon is aiming at, surrounded by a crowd of what, she assumes, are Buggy's pirates.
And a red-haired girl is standing besides the cannon.
Even from where they are standing, Elynna can tell that she has no desire to light up its fuse, despite the cheers of the crowd asking her to do so.
What she sees of the other girl's features from here is enough to know that she is the one who ends up joining the Straw Hat Pirates, and so she's barely surprised when the girl puts together a staff faster than she can gleefully think this is going to hurt, and sends it flying into the face of the pirate who was about to do the job for her.
What she isn't expecting is to see her close her hands around the fuse that was still lit to save her Captain.
Her scream locks every one of Elynna's own muscles into place, body balking against the sheer hurt it betrays.
"Stay here." Zoro tells her, before jumping off the roof.
She doesn't pay much attention to his probably very cool entrance, mind occupied by his words.
Stay here?
She would very much like to. The furthest she is from a fight, the better off she is.
Except there are a lot of pirates here, none of which she can hope to beat, or at least not without a ridiculous amount of luck -which she doesn't have. And there's little chance that no enemy will notice her in the fight that will follow, especially when she will join her crewmates to get out of here.
So she will be the safest if easily reachable by them in the case that does find herself in a pinch.
Besides, it's not like the gap between both rooftops is that wide or high, even if her body is built the same as in her world.
So she jumps.
There's about as little shock as there is when she rolls out of bed, although she staggers on impact -as if her body didn't want to stop where she intended. She files that particular fact in her mind for later perusal, and locks eyes with the not-just-pretty-but-more-like-drop-dead-gorgeous girl, inviting her to come closer with a wave of her hand as she rummages in her backpack for a roll of gauze and a clean cloth that she transferred from her medical kit, as well as the small glass bottle in which she put some drinkable water.
She silently rejoices in her own head over the fact that she read a few pages about the treatment of burns in Food Foo, and that she borrowed Luffy's arms and legs to train herself in making bandages while he slept that morning.
She might not remember everything she read, and her dressings might not be worth that of a professional, but she should be able to make sure that the girl's burn won't become infected, especially with the healing rate of even a lambda citizen in this world.
"Who are you guys? What's going on he-"
Elynna places a finger against her own lips in the universal plea for silence as she tears the protection around the cloth apart, and gets to work soaking the latter in water.
"It would be best if I had more time, but I don't think Zoro-san will need much of it to take care of these guys, or that we'll stay unnoticed for long, so for now I can't really answer your questions, and we'll have to make do with this." She explains hurriedly in soft whispers as she covers the burn with a wet cloth and starts wrapping the gauze around it, wincing and muttering a quick 'sorry' as she feels her patient tense up with the applied pressure -but she can't tie it too loose.
As her hands work on the final knot, she looks up and into the large doe eyes of the other girl (isn't brown supposed to be the most boring eye colour in the world?), framed by frankly unfairly long eyelashes.
"I'm Elynna, by the way." She smiles, quick and small but polite.
The pirate thief stares at her, eyebrows furrowed in clear confusion.
"... Nami." She finally relents with hesitation.
Ah, yes. That's the name she was looking for.
Nami.
Satisfied, she turns around to check the situation with her crewmates, only to find a man whom she assumes to be Buggy 'The Clown', dressed -uh, rather colourfully, and about to attack Zoro, while Luffy is hollering for the latter to 'beat his ass, Zoro!'.
She forces her eyes to stay open, because unless she one day doesn't need to see in order to fight, she can't afford to look away from this if she wants to be able to focus on noticing attacks in the middle of a big-scale battle later on. So she watches as the man (It's a human child... -He's drowning.) rushes at Zoro with his own blades, as Zoro slices him into pieces, as his attacker fall to the ground without even a death rattle, as the blood seeps from his wo-
Wait.
There's no blood.
There's no fucking blood.
Why is there no blood?
And even if their Captain was a tyrant, these guys' laughter sounds way too smug.
She doesn't think.
Doesn't even see the pirate Captain's body reassembling on its own, because she's already running towards Zoro, feet thumping against the roof, blood rushing in her ears and she sees a glint in the corner of her eyes and fuck, she's not fast enough, not close enough-
She jumps.
And her side meets Zoro's back with all the force of it, sending the both of them slamming into the ground, her body rolling away with her momentum, bare arms scraping painfully against the stone of the terrace.
Despite the dizziness that is coming back, she forces herself to jump to her feet as soon as she stops, because she knows that now she has been noticed and she can't hide anymore and maybe they're right here-
She stops.
Her mind is still running and tripping over itself under the shot of adrenaline, howling at her to keep moving, you brainless wretch!-
But her eyes are stuck, wide and staring at Zoro's hand, which is clenching his left side as he kneels there, blood seeping from under it-
"Zoro- Ah, Ann! Where did you come from?!"
She doesn't answer her Captain's question.
She doesn't even look at him.
This isn't her being about to die.
This isn't her watching someone with just about zero redeeming qualities, someone easy to judge as mostly evil without feeling too superficial about it, hurting other people.
This is not even her hurting or killing enemies in a fight.
This is her, hurting someone who is supposed to be her ally (whom she even hoped might become her friend, the ghost of her voice whispers in the back of her mind, because she's not that numb or misanthropic yet).
She feels sick.
"Who the hell are you?!" The clown-nosed pirate yells in a strident voice, as his second hand floats back to his forearm, holding a blade that glints redredred.
Each drop falling from it is like detonation inside her mind, her heart pulsingtwistingsqueezing until it feels like it just might implode-
She's still staring, seeing nothing but Zoro's hand and the blood the blood the blood he's bleeding he's hurt because of her it'sherfaultshehasdonethis-
"I'm gonna kick your ass!"
Luffy's words (or his promise, considering his personality), distorted as they are when uttered around the dagger stuck between his teeth, somehow reach her despite the fact that the rest of the world feels as out of touch as when she's underwater, just in time for her to hear his orders.
"Ann! Zoro! Run away!"
She stays frozen for a moment (and during that second, she can't quite force herself to move, can't quite remember how to move-), vaguely hearing the protests of Nami, who has come to stand beside Zoro -when?, and then snaps back to reality as she sees him slide under the cannon and start lifting it up.
She barely needs a second to understand what he's aiming for, and runs up to them to snatch the box of matches that Nami is still clutching in her hand. When Zoro looks up to tell the other girl to light the fuse, he stops as his eyes fall on the First Mate instead -and because the wick is already burning away.
She doesn't look at him then, and doesn't look either as her Captain and the thief yell at him to stop trying to lift the cage on his shoulder, because 'uwahhh, your stomach is going to pop out!'.
She just shoulders her backpack again, tearing skin away from her lips and one hand clawing harshly at the skin of the opposite upper arm in an effort to distract herself from the feelings inside.
She doesn't say anything. Because she doesn't have a better idea to offer (and wouldn't that be a first?).
Because she doesn't have the right to say anything.
(Because her voice can't come out, stuck in her throat as she watches the three teenagers yell in panic and jab at each other-
And she feels so far away.
Feels like a ghost.
Not seen.
Not heard.
Not needed.
-she squashes the feeling, cramming it at the very bottom of her heart, because she can't afford to think that all of this isn't real. She never had a lot of nightmares, and none that were this creative in the first place, and the fact that she never saw or heard proof that world-travelling is possible in the other world doesn't make it impossible in the slightest -neither her nor the human race can claim to be all-knowing.
More than that, the thought settles with the weight of a truth, deep inside the marrow of her bones, that if she allows herself to believe that this is anything but the truth, she may not, will not be able to keep her mind together, and might just start looking at everyone here like one-dimensional cardboard puppets with no substance or feeling or consciousness-
-she might just become a lot more numb than she already is.
Besides, it's not like she's new to the feeling of staring at a group of people with curled shoulders and trembling hands and a cowering mind, unable to scrape together the courage to join them and talk, not even knowing how to.
-hovering on the edge of the group like a parasitic ghost, so close and yet feeling light years away from them-)
Still, when Zoro starts running and jumping to another roof, she follows after him as she launches a debate with herself on whether or not she should part with them here.
She thought that she could scrounge on the Straw Hat Pirates and use them to go back home without giving them anything in exchange, as long as she makes herself scarce and isn't too much of a bother.
But there's a difference between not having anything to add to their talents and bringing them down.
(Because really, who does she think she's fooling, running shoulder first into Zoro like that when he has much better instinct than her and probably felt Buggy's killing intent or whatever from the beginning?)
And after all, she has no idea whether arriving in this world just when Luffy is drowning was intended or not. For all she knows, she's about to head straight for the most dangerous part of this world, where it's almost guaranteed that she will be heavily injured at some point, all for the sake of finding a clue concerning her situation, which is a very shaky plan based on even more vague premises at best and a foolish hope at worst.
There might not even be a way for her to go back, in which case she'd rather make her life in the least problematic sea, with no price on her head and no link to anyone for whom it will be the case, thank you very much.
Besides, she might not be the nicest person ever, but she has no reason to make this crew's life harder.
(-not when Luffy's antics make her laugh inside no matter how scared and tense and tired she feels, not when the warmth of his skin on hers grounds her mind in this body like it really is hers, grounds her mind in this reality and keeps it from running too far-
-not when Zoro's sarcasm and flustered reactions make her shoulders relax and her mouth more talkative, make the creeping anxiety that at some point she'll cross a line and be left alone for good decrease-)
The fact that she already feels comfortable enough with Zoro and Luffy to go out of her way to talk to them instead of just being polite is also a problem. She doesn't like dealing with emotions -hers or other's- or acting on them beyond analysing them to understand what she's feeling and why, but she's not stupid enough to think that she can deny them into non-existence, or that they don't sway her decisions.
While she can find faults in the Straw Hats (if she spends more time with them, she's pretty sure that she will not always be very patient with Luffy's loudness and 'let's fight then eat and then maybe think' attitude, and that her and Zoro will probably end up clashing over the importance of honour vs. survival), she can tell that she wouldn't really have a problem to get along well with them on most days, that she might even come to consider them her friends. It will probably also be valid for Nami and the ones who follow. They are the main characters after all, it's logical to make them lovable for a large public.
She herself is a relatively decent human being, quite easy to somewhat appreciate at the very least -or so she likes to think. So if she does find a way to get back home, then what? Does she disappear without a trace like she wasn't ever there, as in the original story? Does she fake her death? Does she sit them down and tell her true story -or a fake one? She's never done any of the above, but she's pretty sure that all of them will hurt both parties to some extent. Staying alone might just be for the best, and it's not like it's something that bothers her or that she isn't used to.
When she hears the clang of Luffy's cage as Zoro puts it down now that he has reached the street, she mutes her internal debate, stepping on the other side of the cube to at least alleviate its weight a little bit, being careful to match her steps and gait on Zoro's so as to not jolt his wound any further.
Fortunately, they don't walk too far before Zoro goes to collapse against a pillar, although it's still far enough that she's breathing in short pants and covered in sweat.
Her hands aren't shaking too much compared to how she thinks they would with her original body, however, which is a good thing considering what she has to do now. The trembling has entirely stopped by the time she has taken out everything she needs, and her mind has finished running through what she remembers of her readings and panicking over the fact that god fucking damnit, she thought she would have more time to prepare before one of them would have the brilliant idea to go and get a wound that she can't just slap a band-aid over, and on top of this she's the cause of it-
She kneels down beside Zoro so that she can still see Luffy, whose face is being eaten by a dog (she decides that he probably deserves it and dismisses the issue entirely), and reaches for the swordsman's bloodied haramaki, only to be stopped by his hand on her wrist.
"It's fine. I just need to sleep."
"Look," she sighs, eyes on his hand because she is still unable to look him in the eye after what she has done. "I know that you're very resilient, and I believe you. If I could avoid using thread and a needle on someone's body, I would. But if we are going to kick that guy's ass like the Captain said, we need you to heal even faster so that you feel as good as possible for the fight."
She feels his stare drilling a hole in the side of her head, before he releases her.
"Fine. You're the First Mate anyway."
He turns obligingly on his good side when she asks him, and she presses her knees to his back so he can lean on them for a more stable position. After checking that her hair is all tied up and washing her hand with anaesthetic to limit the bacteria -especially since she doesn't have gloves, she carefully peels away his haramaki and shirt, and cleans the dust and sweat around the wound with a wet cloth, forcing herself to get used to the sight of the wound with all the red and the yellow and oh, is that bone white-
"Thanks, by the way."
Her hand freezes.
"For what." She asks, voice so flat in her incredulity that it doesn't even sound like a question.
"Don't make me say it." He grumbles, clearly not pleased with himself for needing someone's help to do whatever it is he's talking about.
The first stare that she sends him since he jumped off that roof to save Nami tells him clearly that yeah, no, she has no fucking idea what he's on about.
He rolls his eyes in frustration.
"Thanks for getting me out of the way. If you hadn't, he probably would have stabbed me in the stomach."
"Yeah, Ann! You were great!" Luffy chimes in, his face finally free from the dog's jaws.
"Well, you could have done it a bit more gently, though."
She blinks sluggishly, brain fried and unable to respond to the teasing as it processes that apparently, she did not, in fact, make the situation worse, but better. Not enough, because Zoro still got hurt, but the bleeding gash in his skin just below the ribs was obviously better than being stabbed in the stomach where there were so many organs.
She drags herself back to reality quickly, though, because she has work to do and probably limited time to do it.
"Just check that your enemy is really dead next time. If we're going to fight against the strongest pirates, we'll meet a lot more with powers similar to the Captain's." Her shoulders slouch as her eyes bounce between the needle and the wound, and her stomach heaves the slightest bit (the thought comes to her that Luffy eating all their food during the night might actually prove to be a good thing). "Damnit, this is why I stopped picturing myself as a vet at five years old."
"Right. Wait, did you just compare me to that dog right n-" The rest of Zoro's sentence is lost in a scream that is both surprise and pain. "What the hell are you doing?!"
"It's anaesthetic." Elynna answers nonchalantly, running the cloth several times over the wound after sanitising the needle. "It burns like a bitch at first, but believe me, you'll appreciate not feeling anything when I start sewing, especially since I've never done this before. And it might just reduce the pain during the fight, too."
Zoro grumbles some more, but eventually settles when he feels the area becoming numb. He can work with this level of pain on short term -it is more the lack of blood that is problematic, but it's still much better not feeling any, although it is weird to vaguely feel the needle and thread go through the layers of his skin.
Above him, Elynna unconsciously gnaws harder at her lips, eyes straining not to blink as she ties the knot of yet another stitch, reaching up to quickly rub the sweat away from her eyes with her wrist before placing it back on Zoro's ribcage to start threading the needle along, making sure that the distance between the two stitches is as similar as possible compared to the last one.
If it were any other situation, she would be marvelling at the sight -and touch- of Zoro's body because damn, the guy is ripped, and they aren't muscles given by retouching a picture or built in a fitness centre without any actual use in daily life either.
(or maybe she would marvel at the warmth of his skin and the beat of his heart that she can feel beneath her palm, because it's the first time she's touching someone of this world for this long, and it's the clearest, most irrefutable proof that everyone here is alive-)
But the only thing she can focus on right now is the needle in her hand and the gash between his ribs and the loud-
She stops.
"Captain."
"Ah." Luffy looks up from the dog he has gotten into a scuffle with -again. "Yeah?"
"I need to focus if I don't want to mess up. So," she exhales slowly, forcing her jaws to unlock, because she needs to stay calm right now, and getting angry won't help her drive in her point anyway. "Could you please try to stay as calm as possible until I'm done with this?"
Luffy stares at her for a bit, at the hand that trembles against Zoro's side, and settles back in his cage with a decisive nod.
He's rewarded by the slight loosening of his First Mate's shoulders and her grateful nod.
She's winding the roll of gauze around Zoro's midsection after making him sit up when Nami joins them again.
"Oh, hey navigator." Zoro and Luffy chorus.
"I told you I'm not becoming your navigator!" Nami shoots a glare at Luffy, before throwing something at his feet with a sigh. "Anyway, here. I just want to repay my debt to you for saving my life."
"The key? You got the key for me?!" Luffy throws his arms in the air with a cry of delight, gushing about how great Nami is.
Until the dog picks up the key and eats it.
"And that," Elynna breathes in the silence that follows, "is called karma."
"Do you even understand the situation we're in?! You could at least pretend to be worried!"
"Stop moving, Zoro-san. I'm trying to tie your bandage here."
As she carefully pulls down the swordsman's clothes over his form, Luffy's frantic strangling of the dog is interrupted by the arrival of a man claiming to be the town's mayor, who explains to them that the villagers took refuge in a shelter further inland, and then brings Zoro to his house so he can rest.
By the time he comes back, Elynna has crouched down near the dog, running a careful hand over his fur.
The gesture is familiar. Soothing.
Her grandparents have had several dogs over the years, and the current one is getting old, so taking naps on the sun-warmed terrace while petting the golden retriever has become more and more of a habit.
When the mayor brings food to the one he calls Chouchou, she watches him walk away from under her hand, blinking back tears at the thought of that other dog that she might never see again (because even if she does find a way to come back, she has no idea whether he will survive that long or not).
She breathes in sharply to block the sob that is coming out, and uncurls her body from its position, acutely aware of the choking, consuming hollowness around her sternum, weighing her downdowndown even as she gets up.
She picks up her bag as the mayor sits down to tell them the story of why Chouchou is sitting frozen in front of a pet store, because she can't-
(-she can't stay here right now.)
"Ann? Where are you going?"
She stops, but doesn't face him, not sure that she can stay stoic if she sees his -or anyone's- face.
"Ah, I'm just going to the chemist's I saw on the way here to restock on some things. Oh, and Nami-san?"
"Uh, yeah?"
"Although it did not serve its purpose, thank you for bringing the key."
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
She's trying to decide whether she should take more things than the ones she restocked on, considering that the labels are different than the ones she's used to, and so she has no idea what they contain (she's studying humanities and social sciences, not chemistry or biology, after all), when a crash from outside startles her.
She crouches down so that no one can see her just in case, grabs a few vials of what she understands to be painkillers, stuffs them in her backpack, and crawls back to the entrance of the store, forgetting to leave a few bills on the counter in her haste.
Back stuck to the wall, she carefully listens, but she can't hear anything that sounds close to her position, only… barking?
She takes a peek out of the window, only to see a hige lion swat Chouchou away nonchalantly, sending him crashing into a nearby house. Considering that the theme of Buggy's crew is clearly the circus, she has no doubt that the guy coming out of the pet store with a food pack is part of it, but-
Wait, what the fuck is he doing?!
She swears under her breath as she watches the pirate give the box to the lion, and then throw a lit match into the store.
Smoke starts rising from the entrance of the store, but Elynna has already turned away and gone to the backroom, taking out a white coat and a bunch of rags from a wardrobe while cursing up a storm in her mind about this brainless pirate who idiotically burns down a store that could feed his lion for at least a few weeks and what kind of inferiority complex does he have to burn down an entire fucking building because a dog refuses to die at his feet?! She soaks the rags in the sink and stuffs them in the coat's pocket before tying the last one around her lower face, then grabs an almost full bottle of water left on the counter by the store's occupant, and empties half of it above her head, not caring about the growing puddle on the floor.
And then she's running out of the door, barely stopping to check that the other pirate is gone, running past the dog that is sitting in front of the store, running into the burning building, putting the now half-full bottle on a table before she gets started, raiding the shelves and throwing boxes and accessories out of the door as fast as she can, winding the wet rags around her hand when she reaches the part of the store with metallic objects, eyes dry and stinging and checking every few seconds that she's isn't on fire because the heat waves feel like she's hurling herself at a wall covered in embers-
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Nami stands there, staring in horror at the burning building, at the dog sitting in front of it and howling his grief towards the sky, unable to do anything as the sea of memories she's constantly drowning in becomes more stormy (they didn't use fire, but there was plenty of destruction, and she lost her home and treasures all the same).
The ghost of a warm, laughing voice flies by her ear, but she can't quite catch it -not anymore, can't quite remember the words she said before that fight.
(The last fight.
The last anything.)
She clenches her fists, lips trembling.
"Pirates… They're all the same!" She slams her fist against the building she and the mayor used as a cover in case Mohji was still there, not caring about the searing pain that spreads from her hand as her burnt skin takes the brunt of the hit, not caring about the dressing that the girl -the pirate- made for her.
In fact, she tears it apart furiously, simultaneously clawing at every memory in her mind of this Luffy guy's dumb smile and funny antics, of how Zoro saved her and was ready to bleed out to get his Captain out of a difficult situation, of Elynna's politeness and careful hands.
She wants nothing to do with any of them, wants no positive impression of pirates to be left in her mind. She can't believe she's been this naïve-
The sound of footsteps catches her attention, and when she sees that guy come back, without any sign of feeling sorry for what is happening to Chouchou, she snaps.
She doesn't notice the objects flying from the store behind her back, barely aware of what she says, of what she does, of the things she hurls at him, shrieking and spewing the poison corroding her every night and day-
The sound of the box Luffy was carrying as he puts it beside Chouchou, tiny as it is, is what makes her finally stop and stare again as the boy settles next to the dog, what makes her notice the pile of other objects in front of them.
And then all of them see several collars and leashes fly through the air and land on the pile.
"What-"
Whatever the mayor is about to say, he cuts himself off as a figure dressed in white crashes through a window, rolling to a stand. One hand tearing the cloth away from her face while the other throws off the white coat whose bottom has caught on fire, the plump, dark-haired girl that Nami now recognises as Elynna falls to her knees, her whole body shuddering violently with the force of her coughs.
In a flash Luffy is kneeling in front of her, hands flying around her form, touching her face and then her shoulders in frantic worry.
"Ann! Ann! Are you alright?!"
A particularly rough coughing fit almost sends her sprawling forward, if not for her Captain steadying her with his hold on her shoulders and the instinctive way she grasps at his red shirt with the hand that is not covering her mouth.
"You're gonna be okay, right?! You can't- You can't die!" The straw-hatted boy keeps yelling, the panicked expression plastered on his face looking entirely out of place.
Nami frowns, her heart going out for him despite her earlier thoughts -especially considering what the both of them did for Chouchou. Since she met him, he seemed so confident, so unfamiliar with feelings of fear and doubt, that she can't help but be surprised to see him like this. The girl's cougs sound awful too, making Nami feel like she's about to see blood or bits of lung splatter the pavement of the street.
It's the first time that she sees a pirate care for someone else than themselves.
(He brags a lot about those he calls brothers, but she has never seen him caring for one in a weakened state.
Then again, it doesn't happen often for their kind in a place like East Blue.
-she doubts he would accept a show of weakness anyway.)
So when she sees that boy who's so strong and smiles so brightly, when she sees the other one who jumps to the defence of someone he doesn't know because he thinks several people against one isn't a fair fight, and who only fought Buggy when he had no choice, when she sees that girl whose face doesn't quite seem to manage expressing her emotions but who still addresses her so politely... She finds herself wondering if they really are pirates.
"Well, I hope I'm not gonna die like this." A voice wheezes in a rasp. "It's fucking... painful, and the originality of... being killed by charred dog food fumes is kind of outweighed... by the ridiculousness."
Suddenly, Elynna seems to realise that she's still clinging to her Captain's shirt, and she releases it hurriedly, looking less flustered than worried, as if she overstepped a boundary -except it doesn't make sense to Nami when she sees the way Luffy catches her hand in its fall.
"... I should be fine in a few minutes and with a bit of water." The dark-haired girl eventually says hesitantly, and immediately he beams again, the change so quick that it's like he was never worried in the first place.
"Oh good!"
"Captain?"
"Um?"
"Buggy -and his crew. They are… much more experienced than those you've fought so far."
He nods with the most serious expression Nami has seen on his face so far.
"Yeah."
"You can't go easy on them like you did before, okay? I don't want to see you hurt more than necessary."
His face breaks into a smile again, and he laughs.
"Okay. I get it."
And even though she doesn't smile, at this moment, Elynna's whole face melts into something heartbreakingly soft, hand reaching up to thread her fingers gently through the boy's dark hair, and his smile becomes somehow even wider, eyes victorious and delighted and hungry-
Nami feels like an intruder.
Yep, no, they cannot be pirates. Just… No.
"Excuse me, young lady."
Apparently, the mayor doesn't feel the same way, and it gives Nami the guts to follow after him and walk closer to the other two.
Elynna looks up, hand stopping in its movement but staying put.
"Yes?"
"May I ask why you helped Chouchou?"
She rubs her lips together in thought for a moment, before shrugging, hand falling back to her lap (and Nami almost wants to giggle, because Luffy's childish pout makes it very clear how much he disagrees with this -she never thought pirates of all people would make her giggle).
"I just like dogs. I might not have been there to hear your story, but if you didn't take him to the shelter when you left town, I would guess that you couldn't get him to leave this place, so it must be important for him."
"I see. Thank you, on behalf of Chouchou and his owner. This was very brave of you."
"Yep! Ann's the best First Mate ever!"
Nami raises a brow at that -she thought the First Mate was the green-haired one.
"Yes, well," the long-haired girl waves their comments off, looking entirely unsure as to how she's supposed to react, "if you could learn from it, it would be great, because I'm pretty sure that in my place you would run in without taking any protective measures, and you would stay in the store until you had no way to get out without literally jumping through fire like the reckless idiot you are."
Luffy makes a protesting noise at that, but is soon distracted, like everyone else, by the fact that Chouchou has started moving, taking Luffy's box to the pile, before limping to the middle of their little circle, barking in a way that Nami can only describe as amicable towards the two pirates.
"Shishishi! Thanks! Good luck to you too!"
His First Mate bends down, smoothing over his fur while being careful to not scratch or touch his injuries, bending down to press her nose against Chouchou's broad forehead wordlessly, before she straightens up, eyes immediately trailing to Nami's hand.
She's not quick enough to hide it, something like shame heating her cheeks and guiding her gaze away. The hand taking hold of hers gently makes her jump, but she doesn't move, letting the other girl do what she needs.
"Please wait here, Nami-san. I left my backpack at the chemist's so I have to go there and take a cream for light burns with me too."
She's barely disappeared behind the door down the street that the mayor's outburst is interrupted by another Special Buggy Ball -except this time Nami isn't behind the cannon.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
Elynna manages to control her reaction a bit better at the second explosion, and so when she joins the group no one seems to notice anything amiss with her (which is for the best, because there wasn't any mirror in the store, so she has no idea how much she managed to compose herself).
Or perhaps they were too busy marvelling over the fact that the only thing Zoro has to say when he survives a cannon shot is 'talk about a rude awakening'.
She doesn't want to imagine the number of alarm clocks that guy would need to wake up on time.
She comes to a stop in front of Nami, who asks her to put the cream on her hand since she is the only one of the two of them to have just washed their hands. She does so carefully, eyeing the redhead's face for any sign of discomfort at her touch -although that's not very telling considering how she got the burn in the first place.
Once done, she slathers the cream on her own hands and forearms, slightly red despite the use of the rags.
"I won't forgive them!" The mayor suddenly bursts out, body trembling with the force of his scream and all the feelings poured out with it. "These pirates have no right to come here and destroy forty years of our work and lives like this!"
She stares as Nami tries to hold him back, nonplussed.
What is he talking about?
She gets what he's feeling, can imagine his anger and helplessness and the way his chest feels like a fist has been shoved into it and is wrenching out his heart while he chokeschokeschokes on his own blood and grief and-
(She has never seen her home being destroyed, but no matter how much she tells herself that if she came here then it means that she can go back, her pessimistic mind is already half-convinced that her home is lost forever-)
But this has nothing to do with 'having the right' to do anything. It's just about having the capability to do it. They have the firepower for it, there's no one more powerful to tell them no, they don't care about the law, and they feel like destroying a town. That's all.
She wonders on what basis he tells himself that. Common human decency? As far as she's concerned, this is as much a social construct as law -an ideal that not everyone interprets in the same way or adheres to to the same extent.
She watches the mayor's back as he runs, runs away from them and towards what he apparently knows to be his probable death, even though he and the other villagers might be able to come up with a plan to at least inflict some damage on Buggy's crew before dying.
She hopes that she will never lose control of her emotions this much, because she thinks it's much more stupid than it is brave, and if she can't die peacefully, she'd rather die smartly, at least.
(Unless she really is too tired, in which case she might just allow herself to fall apart, to give up-)
She turns back around as her Captain's laugh reaches her ears, barely covering the thief's nagging.
"Hey, Nami, join my crew!"
The pretty redhead's gaze bounces between his absurdly bright smile and the hand he holds out to her, before slapping it away.
"I already told you I won't become a pirate. But... I guess that an alliance is okay. We'll just work towards our individual goals."
Elynna steals a glance at Zoro, but he seems busy warming up. She rolls her eyes.
Well, since her Captain will probably only remember the word 'okay' from the whole sentence, she will just have to be the one to keep Nami's wording in mind.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
As Zoro's body hits the ground, he thinks that cutting his wound open again was maybe -just maybe- a bad idea, because he can feel his mind getting woozy with the lack of blood, and every breath hurts.
Whispers of muttered curses reach his ears, but he can't quite force his eyes to open.
"Honour my ass… Men… Suicidal urge is more like it… Absolute idiots…"
He smirks faintly to himself, because for all her grumbling, she didn't step in or ask Luffy to intervene in his fight.
Then again, he's pretty sure that she's too weak to do much, even against one of the lower members.
Which pisses him off considering that he is her subordinate, but at the same time, if she was as reckless as Luffy and insisted to join in the fray, she would be more of a liability than anything else, so he can at least respect her for being aware of her weakness, staying on the sidelines and making herself useful in other ways.
Besides, she seems to have the will to get stronger, so he decides here and there that as soon as they have a real ship with enough space for it, he'll get back to his own training and drag her into it.
(He just might also be motivated by the idea of getting back at her for the way she's rubbing the anaesthetic on his wound right now, because he can swear that she's doing it more aggressively than the previous time.)
She takes less time for her stitches this time around, since she did each of them separately, and Zoro didn't cut through all of them, so she has fewer to redo. She takes advantage of the fact that the anaesthetic has yet to wear off to support Zoro away from the middle of the street and to a more secluded area where she already took the mayor after taking care of him as much as she can, and they sit down to watch their Captain fight.
Zoro doesn't really see anything of what he's looking at, though, too busy thinking some more about the girl sitting next to him.
There's something weird about her.
Several things, in fact.
From what he understood, she seems to have lived the life of any average, law-abiding citizen, without ever planning to become something like a criminal until, according to Luffy's story, she wound up saving his life after getting lost while swimming, of all things.
But then why did she accept Luffy's offer, instead of parting ways at Shells Town and looking for a boat to bring her back to her island, where she apparently had a family to return to?
And the way she looks at the world, from the resigned bitterness of her words to the darkness in her eyes as she watched the mayor walk away earlier but didn't do anything-
Not to mention her reaction to the first cannon ball. He has never seen anyone look quite that scared -terrified- before. Sure, the sound was loud and sudden, but she somehow turned even paler than she already was (it made the darkness of her eyes haunting) and was shaking so much that he had to keep her from sprawling, and when he looked into her eyes he was pretty sure that she couldn't even recognise him-
And then there's the fact that she's still using honorifics with him despite the casual way she swears and throws sarcasm and innuendos at him, the fact that he has yet to hear her call Luffy anything other than 'Captain' (somehow, he's sure that if she had a polite title to use for him, he would never hear his own name coming out of her mouth either).
Like she's trying to build a relationship with them that allows them to work together, but where she can still keep her distance.
There's definitely something weird with his First Mate, but he's also sure that there must be a reason why someone as analytical as she seems to be is acting like this.
He just can't put his finger on it.
"That idiot, I told him to be careful." She hisses, bringing his attention back to the situation at hand, and he winces sympathetically when he sees Luffy screaming something at Buggy about his hat, which lies on the ground near them, looking distinctly worse than at the beginning of the fight.
Even if he didn't see how panicked his Captain was that morning when his hat almost flew off while Elynna was swimming, Luffy's anger (Zoro doesn't think he'll see him lose his cool like that often) at that moment is enough for him to understand that this hat is as important as his own katanas are for him, and apparently the First Mate knows it too.
"I can speak how I want about Shanks! In my whole life, no one has made me madder than that guy!"
"You sure you don't just have a crush on him?" The girl besides Zoro mutters, and he almost chokes on his saliva.
"Who asked you, you little bitch?! Stop spewing nonsense!"
The girl's face is saying 'ah, shit, he heard me', but she looks absolutely unapologetic.
And clearly, she isn't, because as soon as Buggy's story is finished, she opens her mouth again.
"Sounds like a White Knight syndrome to me."
"Are you trying to get killed? I thought you were supposed to be the careful one!" Zoro hisses, eyes snapping to the blue-haired man to make sure that he didn't hear anything.
"Yeah, that's why I spoke lower this time. Besides, you're just next to me, and I'm not too bad at dodging. Anyone who's played a ball game with me would tell you that I'm more likely to avoid the ball than catch it and pass it to a teammate."
He scoffs in amusement at her deadpan admission, eyes turning back to the weird fight between two users of Devil Fruits (featuring their new navigator).
Eventually, Luffy thrusts his fists in the air with a wide, wild smile.
"Victory!"
He turns around as Nami confirms that she'll stay with them, since it seems she can earn a lot more by following them.
(Zoro thinks she's probably more of a pirate than any of them on that point.)
Luffy gives a satisfied nod at this, eyes flying around the street until they stop besides Zoro, who turns around to find Elynna, kneeling next to him and holding the hat up in the air, having apparently used her needle to patch it up.
"Thanks Ann!" Luffy runs up to them to take his treasure on his head, screwing it tightly onto his head.
"I didn't have the time to finish it, so I'll do that on the boat."
"Okay!" He pauses to laugh, seeming to have come up with an idea. "You should be our doctor!"
Both Zoro and her snort at the same time.
"For your hat, sure, but the less I have to stab people with a needle, the better off I'll be. Plus, I have no formation to be a doctor, so I can only do the most basic things. And if you try to eat a weird fungus again, I will have no idea what to do, so don't think that what I told you the other day isn't still valid."
"Fine, fine." Luffy relents, pouting like a child, before turning to Zoro. "Zoro! Can you stand?"
"Yeah, but I'll be pretty slow." He answers, standing up after taking a moment to take stock of the state of his body.
As they are gathering to leave, the rest of the villagers come in, quickly crowding around the mayor when they notice the condition he is in.
"Goodness, please wake up mayor!"
"What the hell happened here?!"
"It's got to be these pirates!"
"Ah, sorry, that was me."
Nami immediately yells at Luffy, taken aback by the unexpectedly blunt (and stupid, and also needlessly confusing) reply.
"We don't care about your excuses! How dare you do this to our chief?!"
"Who are you anyway? Could you be pirates?"
The short-haired girl turns to Zoro and his First Mate for help, but he stays silent, not caring how the situation is solved since they're about to leave anyway, while the other girl is facing away from them.
He frowns as he sees her shoulders shaking.
Is she-
"We're pirates."
His gaze snaps back to his Captain, and he bursts into a fit of laughter, because really, that guy is just too much.
At least he's sure that he won't be bored anytime soon with him.
He lets his Captain take him onto his back, because he sure as hell can't run away from a mob of villagers who misunderstood his stupid Captain.
None of them expect the sound they hear right then, when Elynna starts laughing.
Somehow, Zoro thought that if he ever ended up hearing her laugh, it would be a quiet, restrained sound.
But it's not.
Instead, he finds himself hearing something loud that can't seem to stop, the curve of her open mouth digging dimples in the chubby flesh of her cheeks, and for the first time he notices that her hair and eyes aren't black, but something between blue and green -for the first time the white of her skin doesn't look ghostly.
Her cheeks turn apple red, and it's not long before Luffy takes hold of her hand to make sure that she doesn't stagger face first into the ground, because she doesn't look about to calm down any time soon, and running while laughing seems to be beyond her too.
When Nami turns right in another street, Zoro has to hit Luffy upside the head for him to follow suit, since he almost runs straight into a wall, too busy staring at his First Mate's smiling face with something like pride as he also starts laughing openly.
Zoro's head thumps against his Captain's shoulder, and he prays that they'll make it to the pier alive.
They do, and as the island is fading in the horizon, Nami realises that she only has one bag of treasure.
"What do you mean you left it on the island?! There was five million berries in that bag, you idiot!"
"But since the village was destroyed, they'll need money to rebuild it!"
"I don't care! It was my treasure!"
"Argh! Don't do that! I can't swim!"
"That's exactly why I'm doing it, stupid pirate!"
"I'm really sorry! I've realised my mistake! Please spare me!"
"Don't you dare do it again!"
Zoro watches as Elynna, who barely managed to calm down, bursts into another fit of giggles, arm holding onto her probably burning stomach, and he can't help but join in, blithely ignoring Luffy's pleas for help.
〪〪〪〜〜⏆〜〜〭〭〭
OK, so Elynna is also into sex jokes… To be honest things kind of got out of hand on this one, because that's not my usual sense of humour, but oh well. Now I understand why some people say that their characters write themselves.
Luffy is very proud to have made Elynna initiate (affectionate) physical contact.
It took a few days vs a few months (at least) for Ace.
Progress.
Once they get a real ship, I'll start doing some original moments in between the different arcs and islands! (If I can be satisfied with what I come up with.)
See you in the next chapter, and I wish you the best for this week!