The weight of the haori wrapped around her shoulders was a new distracting sensation. It was crisp in a way that hadn't yet absorbed the scent of the person it belonged to. Still, the fabric was thick, warm, and far better than the chill pressing into her arms.

She shifted slightly in Zoro's hold, adjusting the haori as best she could while being carried midair.

"Don't get it dirty," Zoro muttered, eyeing her from the corner of his gaze.

Nami snorted. "Too late."

Zoro stiffened slightly as he flew. "What?"

She sighed dramatically. "I definitely sweated after you threw me into the sky."

Zoro made a face.

"You're lucky I didn't pee a little," she added with a smirk.

Zoro visibly recoiled, grunting in exaggerated disgust. "That's disgusting, witch."

His expression was caught somewhere between horrified and amused, and for a moment, she thought she had actually grossed him out. But then—a low chuckle came. Rough, deep, real.

Nami's breath caught slightly at the sound since Zoro didn't laugh often—not like that.

She smirked, nudging him slightly. "Oh, shut up. If I had, it would've been your fault."

Zoro just shook his head, the corners of his lips twitching like he was holding back another laugh.

"Tch. Just don't get it dirty," he repeated, but the warning had lost its bite.

Nami rolled her eyes but secretly pulled the haori tighter. It was warm. And for a moment, so was she. The first rays of sunlight painted the sky in hues of gold and lavender as Zoro's wings beat steadily against the crisp morning air. The cold bit at his skin, but he barely noticed it—his arms were full of something warmer. Nami.

She had protested at first, squirming in his grip, complaining that he was holding her all wrong.

"You're carrying me like I'm a sack of rice," she grumbled, shifting against his chest. "At least let me—ugh—there."

Now, curled into a slightly more comfortable position in his bridal carry, she had draped one arm over his shoulder while the other scribbled furiously in her notebook. Zoro only grunted in response, adjusting his hold on her once, then letting her be.

Every few minutes, his gaze flickered downward to watch her. Her fingers worked fast, pencil scratching across the parchment. She was completely immersed in whatever she was sketching as she glanced at the clouds around them.

"What are you doing?" he asked finally.

"Map making," she answered without looking up. "Even if this adventure is just a means to get me home to Nojiko… There's something about putting the world in my hands."

Zoro thought he already had a whole world in his hands. But instead, he said, "How can you map… when we're way up in the clouds?"

She smiled at that. "My mother."

Nami's voice softened as she spoke, though the wind swallowed parts of it, forcing Zoro to listen carefully.

"She always told me to listen to my feelings…and I always felt the clouds," she said, eyes distant, lost somewhere beyond the golden horizon. "I always had this instinct. Even as a kid. The way the tides moved, the way the air smelled before a storm—I could feel it before I ever saw it. It wasn't something I learned; it was something I knew."

Zoro didn't interrupt; he just adjusted his grip around her, letting her talk.

"My mother noticed it before I ever did. She used to sit with me on the cliffs near our home, watching the waves. 'The sky will always speak if you learn to listen,' she told me. And I did. I could predict when the fishermen needed to stay home and when the winds were going to shift. It was like the sea, and the sky had a rhythm only I could hear."

She exhaled a quiet laugh, though there wasn't much humor in it.

"I didn't even think of it as magic," she admitted. "It was just…something I did. As if I could hear the world around me in the winds. It…made me feel special, even when I was just a girl in a small village with no real power."

Her fingers curled slightly around the edges of Zoro's haori, her body unconsciously tensing.

"Then I had to become stronger."

The warmth in her voice vanished. The air between them grew colder, and Zoro felt it—the way the weight of her past suddenly pressed into the space they shared. She didn't stop, though.

"My mother…," she said, voice steady but tight. "She was not a prideful woman…but she was a protector. Even at the cost of her own life."

His grip on her tightened slightly, but he stayed silent, waiting.

"She…died doing what she believed shamans were meant to do…protect. Serve," Nami added, a sharp edge cutting into her tone.

That caught his attention. His brows furrowed slightly.

"You…plan to do the same?"

Nami's lips curved upward—not in a smile, but something darker.

"I'm not sure…yet," she confirmed. "What I do now… it's for my sister. But after that…I don't know… what's the point of power if you don't have a reason to use it…"

Her voice hitched. She swallowed hard, willing it away.

"I wonder if she'd be proud of me now."

The wind carried the silence between them, heavy and thick, with something Zoro recognized as well—grief shaped into defiance.

"Why wouldn't she be?" he murmured. "You've always been a good witch."

Nami's body tensed against him. She fidgeted slightly, her grip shifting.

"I don't know about that," she muttered.

He glanced down at her, but she wasn't looking at him anymore.

"Witches are supposed to have past lives," she said, quieter now. "They're supposed to remember who they were before. But me? I don't know if I even had parents. I was left behind. I found a family, I lost family, and now—"

Her voice hardened.

"I will save my family."

The conviction in her voice burned through the cold. Zoro exhaled through his nose. He understood that kind of determination—that kind of need.

"I can't remember my life," he admitted. "But I know what being alone feels like."

And just like that, the weight between them shifted. A quiet understanding.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The sky stretched infinitely before them, golden and endless.

Then Zoro asked, "But how…how do you know where Nico Robin is?"

Nami blinked, caught off guard. "I can see it," she murmured, glancing ahead. "It's a path. It's faint, but it's there. Like… a heartbeat."

She chuckled, which sent shivers down Zoro's spine. "The clouds told me."

Zoro watched her, taking in the way she spoke of it like it was second nature.

"She is…elusive," he muttered.

"You've met her?" Nami asked.

"She's a friend of Luffy's. We've interacted before..."

The way he said it—so casual, so familiar—made something bristle in Nami's chest.

"She was always a mystery," Zoro continued. "But once she got involved with the Revolutionary Army, she went into hiding."

Nami frowned slightly.

"I've heard stories," she said, searching Zoro's face.

The words came quickly, but they carried the weight of every whispered tale, every drunken rumor passed between sailors who swore they'd seen the impossible.

"It didn't dawn on me before…but now, here in the skies. It makes sense. They call her a Valkyrie. A banshee."

She felt the slight shift in Zoro's grip, the faintest tension in his jaw as he listened.

"Some say she was once human, but she's lived too long, learned too much. That she walks between life and death, lingering where no one else dares. She's a phantom—a specter that appears in the highest places, in lands above the clouds where no one should exist. And yet… she does."

Nami's eyes narrowed slightly, scanning Zoro's expression.

"No one agrees on what she is. Only that she's something beyond mortal."

Nami continued, her voice softer now.

"And beautiful… There's an old sailor's superstition," she murmured, her breath warming against Zoro's collarbone. "They say if you hear a woman whispering in the wind, calling your name when no one is there… it's her. And if you follow the sound, you'll never be seen again."

Zoro's expression didn't change, but his silence told her everything. He knew these stories. Maybe he had even witnessed them. The thought sent something odd twisting in her chest.

Zoro exhaled through his nose and shrugged, bringing Nami closer to him.

"She's a woman," he said simply.

His voice was calm. Certain. It was as if to cut through mysticism and remind Nami that Robin wasn't some celestial being—just another person.

But the way he said it—so casual, so familiar—made Nami tilt her head up, her fingers tightening around the haori.

"Oh?" she asked, forcing lightness into her voice. "What kind of woman?"

Zoro opened his mouth. "Well—"

A shadow swept over them. The sky split open.

Nami didn't breathe, didn't blink—her body frozen as the vision before her unfolded.

A woman descended from above, not falling, not flying, but floating, her silhouette framed by the golden light of morning. And she was beautiful.

Not in the way mortals were, not in a way that could be contained in words. Her arms unfurled from her back, blooming like the wings of a celestial being, each one perfectly symmetrical and moving with an eerie grace. They stretched outward, vast and endless, like a cathedral of limbs carved from some divine hand, bathed in the light of heaven itself.

The sun adored her, kissing her skin with an ethereal glow and illuminating the soft curves of her body, the delicate yet unbreakable form she carried with effortless regality. She didn't move like a person. She moved like a force—unshaken, unyielding.

The fabric of her dress rippled, shifting between violet and rose, like the sky at dusk. It curled around her legs, untouched by the wind, its movements dictated only by her—not gravity, not fate, not anything but the silent command of her presence.

And her eyes. Dark, endless pools—bluer than the deepest parts of the sea, colder than the farthest reaches of the sky. Watching. Knowing.

The air around her was still. The world itself seemed to pause, bending toward her in reverence.

Nami's lips parted, her voice barely above a breath.

"An angel."

Zoro scoffed. "I wouldn't call her that," he muttered, and then he sensed it—the bloodlust.

His grip on Nami tightened. Then—suddenly, violently—he spun them so he could take in the sight.

The world tilted for Nami, the horizon twisting as he shifted midair, his wings slicing through the wind, adjusting their course.

"What are you—?"

But Zoro saw it for what it was. She wasn't just descending. She was diving.

The elegant, sweeping motion was no greeting. No gentle arrival. It was a strike.

Zoro's jaw tensed, his arms tightening around Nami's body as his eyes locked onto the approaching figure.

"She's on a warpath," he muttered.

A decision clicked into place in his mind. He didn't hesitate.

"Nami," he said, his voice low, steady.

She looked up at him, heart pounding.

"Do you trust me?"

The words sank into her like a stone into deep water. She hesitated. Not because she didn't.

But because of the woman above them, the angel that wasn't—the one descending with unshaken purpose, her wings made of hundreds of arms cast an eclipse over the sky.

Robin's eyes met Nami's. Cold. Calculated. Nami swallowed hard, her fingers gripping Zoro's haori. Then Nami nodded.

Zoro let her go, and the sky gave way beneath her.

The wind roared past Nami's ears, tearing at her hair and ripping the breath from her lungs as she plummeted. She barely had time to process what had happened—one moment, she was in Zoro's arms, and the next, she was freefalling, the horizon spinning in a violent blur.

Her body seized in panic. She forced her arms outward, trying to summon something—anything.

Her magic had always been fickle and unpredictable, but this was the worst possible time for it to fail. She clenched her fingers into desperate shapes, muttering sigils between gasping breaths.

Nothing. The wind screamed around her. She screamed with it.

"Nami!"

Her name. Sharp. Commanding.

She barely managed to twist her head, just in time to see three dark objects slicing through the sky toward her.

Her eyes widened. Swords. Zoro's swords. They were coming for her. Her stomach lurched.

"Oh, hell no—!"

She shrieked as the weapons closed in, instinct screaming at her to move, to dodge, to do something. But even as terror shot through her veins, her hands moved—reaching, grasping—pulling them in, pressing them against her body, as if somehow, impossibly, they could anchor her.

They were heavy and solid, and the weight felt… strangely grounding. She curled around them, hugging them close, her fingers gripping the hilts as though holding onto them might sprout wings from her back and save her from the inevitable.

The sky rushed past her, a blur of gold and white and blue, as if the heavens themselves were swallowing her whole. And above, high above—

The real battle raged. Robin and Zoro clashed in midair, a storm of limbs and steel, their forms nothing but flashes of motion against the vast, endless sky.

Zoro's wings cut through the wind with brutal efficiency, adjusting his position mid-strike, his claws meeting Robin's conjured arms with resounding shrieks of metal against summoned flesh.

She was everywhere. Her arms bloomed in waves, forming barriers, grabbing at him, twisting in an attempt to restrain his movements. But Zoro was relentless—each time she tried to entangle him, his swords carved through her conjured limbs like slicing through silk.

Robin was patient. Methodical. She didn't meet him head-on. She didn't need to. For every strike he landed, she had another move waiting, another shift, another bloom of limbs to redirect him.

And the worst part? She wasn't even rushed. Her expression remained calm, unreadable, the kind of stillness that made Zoro's instincts scream at him. She was toying with him.

"Tch—" Zoro gritted his teeth, wings beating hard as he maneuvered, trying to shift the fight away from where Nami was falling.

Robin's gaze flicked downward, catching the motion. A small smile played at her lips. She saw. She knew.

Zoro growled and lunged, teeth flashing—

Robin's arms bloomed in response, a hundred hands reaching, twisting, redirecting his momentum.

And below them, Nami continued to fall.

Clutching Zoro's swords, praying to the wind itself that something, anything, would catch her.

Suddenly, Nami's descent ended with a sudden, bone-rattling halt. Her breath punched from her lungs as she landed against something hard—unmoving, metallic, and impossibly cold.

For a second, she thought she had hit solid ground. But the texture was wrong. It wasn't earth, wasn't stone or wood. It was smooth beneath her palms, a strange, unnatural chill seeping through her skin despite the warmth of the sun.

She gasped, her body curling inward, her grip on Zoro's swords tightening as she tried to process—

Then she felt it. A subtle, rhythmic hum.

Not the heartbeat of something alive, but the pulsing, mechanical life of something built.

Her breath hitched. This wasn't anything alive. It was a machine. Nami slowly turned her head, and for the first time, she saw it.

A towering metal beast, its body thick and reinforced, gleaming under the morning light with a battle-worn sheen. Its massive torso was adorned with markings of warning, like a fortress painted to intimidate.

Its arms, impossibly large, were fitted with massive blue wheels, their intricate design suggesting they could be something else entirely—engines, weapons, or both.

And its face. A grinning skull emblazoned across its chest, not just a design but a symbol, a statement. But above that, where a head should be, there was something even stranger. A white-plated dome, sleek and edged with red, crowned with a singular, spiraled horn.

It didn't move like a living creature. It wasn't a living creature. And yet, it had caught her.

Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. What is this thing?

She opened her mouth to scream—

Then a whistle split the air. Something was falling. Something else.

A streak of black and red—Zoro.

His unconscious body hurtled toward them, blood trailing in the air like a comet's tail. Nami's breath caught.

Before she could even react, the machine's massive other hand shot out, catching him with the same ease it had caught her. There was no hesitation. No struggle. Just an effortless grasp. And then—

Laughter. A booming, joyful sound, rich and full, vibrating through the very metal beneath her fingers.

"Well, looks like we have guests…"

The voice was deep, yet oddly warm, the kind that belonged to something or someone who enjoyed company, even when that company arrived in the most unexpected ways. Nami's body tensed, her fingers curling around the hilt of Zoro's sword.

A shadow passed overhead. Robin landed gracefully on the massive shoulder of the steel titan, her arms crossed, her expression calm as ever.

"Well," she mused, tilting her head as she gazed down at Nami. "We love guests, don't we, Franky?"

The machine—Franky?—chuckled again, a low, mechanical rumble that somehow still sounded human. But Nami barely heard them.

Her gaze had already snapped to Zoro. Blood dripped from his temple, smeared across his face, staining the fingers of the thing holding him.

Her breath came sharp and fast, something cold and terrified gripping her chest.

"Let him go," she whispered.

No one reacted. Her grip tightened on his swords.

"I said—let him go!"

A sudden pulse erupted from her, raw and uncontrolled, as power surged through her body. Lightning crackled across her fingertips.

A blast of energy exploded outward. Blinding. Consuming.

For a brief, blinding moment, the sky, the machine, Robin—everything—was swallowed in light.