Zoro has, to put it mildly, been having a bad day.
First, his new captain—pirate captain, and man, he sure is a pirate now, funny how life shakes out sometimes—had been kidnapped by a giant bird. Then, Zoro had paddled their dinghy with almost more force than it could bear chasing the idiot. And then, while looking for Luffy, Zoro had managed to walk directly into a den of the most obnoxiously colorful pirates he's yet had the misfortune of running into.
"That wasn't much of a fight, now was it?" he complains darkly, suspiciously glaring back at the other crew's captain's chopped up body. The men who have semi-circled around him, rather than attacking or cowering, only laugh, and Zoro can't help but feel that something is wrong here. It would be just his luck, too.
"What do you find so damn funny?" he asks the crowd at large, annoyed.
At the same time as a high-pitched voice he doesn't recognize screams out a warning from somewhere he can't see.
"Zoro, behind you!"
And then Buggy knifes Zoro in the back.
Today is just really, really not my day, Zoro thinks from on his knees, and adds clown-murder to his bucket list.
️ ️ ️XXX
There's a horrible, weightless moment of freefall in which Nami clings onto Luffy's midsection—around Treva, who absolutely does not have the arm strength to hang on on her own—with what she's sure would have been enough force to crack a normal person's ribs, and then they're back on solid ground, roof, whatever, with Luffy already on his feet and furious.
"Stabbing him in the back was a cowardly move!" he roars, which does nothing for Nami's already ringing ears. Her grip on Treva, who's gone boneless in her arms, tightens involuntarily. "You big-nose!"
Like you have any room to talk, Rubber Boy, Nami thinks, almost hysterically, but doesn't say. But she has to stay calm, calm, and really, the fact that Luffy had been able to catapult the three of them up onto the roof Treva had pointed out is sure to be useful again someday. She shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. She should… really, she should be off stealing Buggy's treasure while he's distracted, actually.
"What's that… you… said?" Buggy seethes as if on cue, turning to Luffy after a beat of perfect, disbelieving silence, with veins clearly popping in his forehead. "Who's got a big nose?!"
And then Buggy attempts to stab Luffy in the face. It doesn't work out, of course, but Nami doesn't have the time to appreciate the details. With a professional's steady surety, she bats Treva's shaking hands away from the duffle bag, tucks her easily under one arm, and slips away from the fighting and behind Buggy's men. Luffy is an excellent distraction, she notes. She'll have to remember that.
"Nami?" Treva mumbles, voice blessedly small, looking up at Nami like a rabbit going into shock.
"I need you to be quiet for a little while," Nami mutters back, swiping the chart of the Grand Line in one nice, clean motion, never even stopping at the table it had just been lying on. Honestly. It was like Buggy was asking to have his things stolen.
Behind them, Luffy and Zoro—who is, evidently, another insane person—appear to have split off into a fight with Buggy and one of Buggy's men respectively. Good, Nami thinks, because it means they'll buy her time, and slips into the clown pirates' tent.
"Treva," Nami says firmly. Treva jolts in her hold and looks back up at Nami with huge eyes. "Where is the treasure?"
"Oh." Treva blinks a few times, and tries to wriggle onto her feet. Nami lets her. Treva points at a latch door built into the roof's flooring and, distantly, tells Nami, "I know."
They hurry along, all the way down to the building's basement. The only real obstacle in their path turns out to be a drunk crewmember, left behind as a nominal guard, but Treva points him out to Nami before he has the chance to wake up, and Nami ensures that he won't wake up at all any time soon with a sound thwack to the head.
Treva makes herself busy lighting them an oil lamp she found in the meantime, and Nami, careful not to look at Treva's face in the dim glow, instead keeps her eyes on the prize.
"Look at all this stuff!" she giggles, entering the treasure room with a giddy feeling. Nami wastes no time kneeling in front of the great big pile of gold she's found, digging her hands blissfully into it. "And every last bit of it is mine!"
"We should split it into two bags," Treva advises, crouching beside Nami. "It'll be too heavy in just one."
"Yeah… Good thinking." Nami shifts her weight awkwardly, which is highly uncomfortable from her current position. Man. She basically likes kids, but this kind of situation is actually pretty messed up, isn't it? She'd almost forgotten. "Are you… like, okay?"
That finally seems to snap Treva out of it, who sniffs, rubs furiously at her eyes with her free hand, and shakes her head violently back and forth a few times. Frustrated, she insists, "Zoro will win. I know he will, and it won't even scar. I've seen it."
"Good to know." Hoping to distract them both from what Nami really hopes won't become a tantrum, Nami hands Treva a sack from her own supplies, and gets to work shoveling treasure into another one. With great gusto, Treva follows her lead.
"I've seen it, but it stinks ," babbles the oversized fetus, with a sort of building, angry hysteria Nami knows intimately. "Blood really, really stinks. Zoro's gonna win, but he's… he's hurt. I don't like it. I wasn't ready for it to stink so much, Nami. I wasn't…"
Treva sniffles again, but doesn't stop moving, so Nami doesn't call her out on it.
"Yeah," Nami says instead. Her throat feels dry. "It's—different, in person, I guess. It… really sucks, huh?"
"Yeah." Some more, distinctly determined sniffling. "I won't mess up like that again. You'll see."
Nami snorts. "It's hardly your fault if that idiot wants to go off and get himself stabbed. Just relax and help me gather all this up, okay? And then we can go bandage the both of them up."
"Okay." Renewed, vigorous shuffling signals to Nami that Treva has picked up speed. "Okay," she repeats, with more energy, and then huffs wetly but with increased bombast. "Honestly! I'm so embarrassed! I've already seen lots of people see blood for the first time and go, ohhh nooo, blooooooood! I already decided I won't do that, so I won't." Sniff. "And that's really all there is to say on the matter!"
Nami laughs, just a little, just this side of manic. What a surreal day. She can't wait to be rid of these people. "If you say so."
It's not until they've got all of Nami's treasure packed up securely in two great, big, beautifully round sacks that Treva speaks up again, having regained at least the veneer of her bravado.
"Okay," she repeats one more time, tilting a mean little smile up at Nami, downright goblin-like. She reaches up to tug at something under her scarf, but Nami can't make out what. "So, here's what we're gonna do."
️ ️ ️XXX
It's towards the end of Buggy's story about Shanks that Luffy catches sight of Nami and Treva again, sneaking around Buggy's men to hide behind the large cannon set up towards the edge of the roof. By the bags they're carrying and the large ball-thing Treva rolls along with them, he can assume the pair had been successful. At this point, Luffy has his temper back under control well enough to consider the possibility that Nami—who seems pretty smart in general, actually—had taken a moment to wait until the Buggy Pirates were sufficiently distracted by their captain's old drama before leaving the relative safety of the tent.
"Are you telling me that Shanks saved your life?" Luffy asks Buggy, both as a genuine point, and as a matter of keeping Buggy's attention from whatever Nami has in mind.
"No!" Buggy explodes, predictably, pointing an accusatory finger at Luffy. He completely misses Nami darting out from behind him to very covertly drag a dead to the world, but previously victorious, Zoro rearside of the cannon with her. "That's not the point I'm trying to get across! Because of what he did to me, I was unable to swim, and therefore—"
It's at around this stage of Buggy's latest rant that Luffy lets himself tune out, but not because he isn't invested. He's just more invested in the ongoings of his crew. He can sort of make out Nami… getting a head start on treating Zoro's injuries, he thinks, and Treva peeking intently from around the cannon's wheel, for whatever reason now clutching an old sock. His eyes meet her's, just for a moment, and then—
A bagless Treva darts out into the open behind Buggy, across the roof and away. Taking a solid, wide-footed stance, she cups her sock-free hand in front of her mouth, and with enough force to almost send her toppling forward, yells—
"We robbed you, you BIG-NOSED CABIN BOY!"
There's a single, perfect beat of silence in which Buggy locks up with nearly palpable rage, and his men lock up in nearly palpable fear of their own captain. Only that one, perfect beat, followed quickly by Buggy's torso launching itself knives-first at Treva with a shrill howl of reproach.
Treva, of course, screams, and ducks, and only narrowly escapes death. Luffy, noticing the slow plow of Buggy's lower half in the same direction as the rest of him, kicks Buggy in the nuts just in the nick of time. Buggy's torso crashes to the ground in pain, and Treva, who was already crouching, lunges for his head. As Luffy watches on with interest, Buggy's still-stunned head comes easily off his neck, and Treva tucks it under her arm like a basketball, conveniently covering his still-watering eyes with her forearm. Treva then takes off running again. With a dedicated pattering of feet against concrete, she manages to make it all the way back to Luffy before the shock wears off the Buggy Pirates.
"Not that I don't appreciate it, but you better go hide now, Treva," Luffy tells Treva, frowning. He can't imagine that Nami's approved of this course of action. She's gonna be pissed.
In response, Treva only huffs, and takes the opportunity to laboriously raise up her fist that's still latched onto one end of the old sock. On closer inspection, there's a rock in the sock, and it's heavy enough for Treva to struggle with it, but not so heavy that she's unable to swing the thing at all.
Which Treva does. Swing the rock by the sock, that is, presumably to buy some more time for her and Luffy to talk. The rock strikes Buggy somewhere very vulnerable, where his lower half had collapsed in its agony, and behind them, Buggy's crew winces in collective male sympathy. Buggy shrieks.
"Less talking, more Gum Gum Bazooka!" Treva pleads.
"That… Oh." Luffy turns a sly grin on Buggy's scattered pieces. "Ohhh."
Obligingly, he accepts Buggy's screaming head from an increasingly insistent Treva, slinging out his arms to gather and smoosh together the rest of the clown man. That done, he digs his heels in for anchor.
"Gum Gum…"
Luffy winds up, flinging his arms and their load back.
"BAZOOKA!"
And off Buggy goes, little more than a distant twinkle in the sky. Luffy takes the chance to admire his handiwork, but Treva is already tugging at the hem of his shirt, attempting to drag him off. Luffy, bemused, allows it, and finds himself hurried in the direction of the cannon.
The Buggy Pirates, evidently on the road to rousing from their spell of bewilderment, start to draw themselves up in violent bluster. But Luffy pays them no mind, because Nami comes into view, her expression somewhere in the intersection of horrified, disbelieving, and pissed. As expected and as is reasonable, of course.
"You didn't tell me you were going to do that!" she hisses at Treva. "You can't just do that!"
Treva, having stashed her blunt instrument of choice into and re-aquired her bag, ignores Nami in favor of slapping the cannon vigorously. "Luffy! You have to flip it over!"
Luffy, remembering the ball-thing from earlier, doesn't need to be told twice. He beams and takes hold of the barrel. "Okay!"
Luffy flips the cannon. Nami, for all her disapproval, wastes no time in producing a matchbox from parts unknown and lighting it. The Buggy Pirates barely get the chance to figure out what hit them.
"All's well that ends well!" Luffy announces, pleased, peeking out from around the cannon much like Treva had done before. Treva herself peeks out from around Luffy, who had very responsibly grabbed her when diving for cover. She takes in the downed and twitching figures of Buggy's men with great smugness.
"And Buggy wasn't even possessed in this future!" she enthuses, then pauses. "Oh, but—but I stole that. Taking Buggy's bits and turning the cannon around, I stole that from the future, because Nami and Zoro were gonna think of it. So it doesn't count." She looks up at Luffy very seriously. "I'm gonna come up with lots of very useful ideas on my own. You'll see."
"For now, could you start being useful by carrying one of these bags for me?" Nami interjects, deflating with relief and resignation in equal measures. She sighs, squares her shoulders, and only spares the haphazardly bandaged Zoro a brief, if complicated, glance. "Luffy, you take Zoro. Me and Treva will carry the treasure, and we'll head for the docks. We'll rig your dinghy to the little Buggy Pirates boat it was docked next to and skip town."
Luffy nods. Treva raises a hand up, palm-out, in askance.
"I have to go tell the townspeople that the Buggy Pirates are leaving," she says. "Luffy's strong enough to carry Zoro and the treasure, so it's fine, isn't it? And I want to say bye to Chouchou."
Whoever Chouchou is, Nami frowns at Treva, but just sighs again and shakes her head. "Fine. But if you're not at the docks in twenty minutes, we're leaving without you, got it?"
Treva pales comically, but scrunches up her face into something like determined constipation. She salutes Nami with the wrong arm. "Got it!"
Treva takes off at a sprint. Luffy laughs. Nami puts her head in her hands.
️ ️ ️XXX
"So you're telling me," Zoro starts, unimpressed, "That we're going to let a ten-year-old sail with us, because she told you she can see the future."
"Yup!" Luffy confirms.
"And she wants us to go and beat up some… fish-guy."
"Yup!"
"Huh." Zoro considers this. "Okay."
"Okay?" Nami repeats incredulously. "Just—okay? That's it?"
"Well." Zoro looks at her like she's the weird one. "Yeah."
Nami massages her temples. She supposes she shouldn't be too surprised: Zoro is, after all, the lunatic who slept off a gut wound, apparently.
"I told her I didn't want her telling me about the future," Luffy admits, from the other end of his and Zoro's boat. Nami, pointedly, has settled into the stolen Buggy Pirates vessel as they wait for Treva. "But it's fine if you want to know."
Zoro thinks about it, then shrugs. "I don't care either way. So long as she doesn't try to give me an unfair advantage against other swordsmen, I guess." He scowls. "Might be nice to know if they cheat before I fight them, though."
Nami regards him with baleful disbelief. Luffy only laughs, clearly pleased.
"Anyway." Nami huffs. She watches the both of them, and they turn to watch her. "She told me you guys call yourselves pirates, but you're… more like adventurers, right?"
"Pirates are adventurers," Luffy corrects, the line of his mouth and the set of his eyes suddenly grim under the shadow of his hat. Nami feels herself still, involuntarily. "Freedom, adventure, and good friends to share it all with. That's a pirate. All those guys who hurt people for no reason and act like they own the world somehow, they're the one's who're just calling themselves pirates. They're just jerks with boats."
And somehow, despite everything, despite her life, a part of Nami can't help but believe him when he says it like that. She makes note of how Zoro is looking at Luffy, swallows, and laughs a little. "Jerks with boats, huh?"
Luffy grins. "Yup!"
"They'd hate that, you know?"
The grin stretches. "Yup!"
He's insane. Nami laughs more openly, more readily. She notices Zoro, who more bares teeth than smiles. Completely nuts.
It doesn't take long for her giggle fit to die down, leaving Nami feeling drained. She leans back against the boat's railing. After a beat of silence, she holds out her arm.
"Your hat got pretty torn up back there, right?" She wiggles her fingers. "Give it here. I'll fix it for you, if you like."
Luffy lights up. "Really? Thanks, Nami!"
He hands her the hat. Nami allows herself a steadying exhale, goes looking for what she'll need to patch it up, and gets down to work.
She hasn't been at it for very long when Treva sprints into view.
"I'm here!" she announces, flushed a splotchy red and clearly out of breath. She vaults the broadwalk, landing flat on her face. Nami instinctively starts to get up to go check on her, but Treva only heaves herself up onto her hands, teary-eyed yet determined. "I made it, so please don't leave without me! I'm not slow!"
Sand-laden and trying her very best, which still isn't very good, not to cry, Treva runs the rest of the way to their boats and stumbles over the side of Luffy and Zoro's dinghy, boarding it with some struggle but still successfully. Nami tries not to feel like the bad guy, but certainly feels uncomfortable. She busies herself with Luffy's hat.
Luffy himself just laughs, patting some of the sand off of Treva's head as she sniffs.
"You're still pretty slow," he observes. Nami hears Treva inhale sharply, and is struck by the distinct urge to hit him. "But we weren't really going to leave you. You're our mascot, after all!"
"What? No!" Treva, Nami knows more than she sees, draws herself up in righteous infant-indignation, fists balling at her sides. "You can't call me that anymore, you said you wouldn't! You did! And Chopper is the mascot!"
Zoro perks up with sudden interest. "Sounds like a swordsman's name."
Treva makes a strangled noise of burbled protest. Luffy laughs. Nami valiantly ignores them all.
"I guess I did say that, huh?" Luffy muses easily. "Don't worry, Treva! I'm sure we'll find something for you eventually!"
Treva crosses her arms and does some more snuffling. She's stopped crying, at this point, but her nose must be bothering her. "You don't have to find me something. I already found something on my own. I'll be the strate—"
"Can someone," Nami interrupts, "Please just push us onto the water?"
Laughing all the while, still, Luffy obliges.