Chapter 9
A prison for beetles
When Bell-mère found her, Nami didn't have a name. She was a very small, emaciated child, probably only a few months old, orphaned, starving, and without a name to be called by. Her mother used to say she fell in love with her smile in a world full of wars, screams, and tears, and Nami loved to imagine that encounter between soap bubbles and magic. Over the years, she realized that the first smile had been due to her deafness, not magic.
Nami lost her hearing because of the bombs and screams during the first months of her life. Bell-mère saved up every year, between work and hunger, so the village doctor could check her ears. Small children could suffer serious consequences, and according to the doctor—who was more drunk than wise—Nami had lost a significant amount of hearing due to it. She struggled to hear the birds sing and had never known the sound of cicadas in summer.
She wasn't sad about the hearing loss; she couldn't miss what she never had. But Bell-mère suffered a great deal when she learned her daughter would never hear the sound of the ocean, and in an attempt to bring her closer to that vast sea of mysteries, she gave her the name Nami now carried everywhere with her. Her mother's first gift, the only one she clung to with all her might to avoid losing it when she was enslaved.
In the end, the sea became both her enemy and her ally. A part of herself. The place she turned to when she was unable to understand her own feelings on land.
She went to it on the last day on Dawn Island, and while Ace and Luffy, barefoot, fought between water and sand, she paused to admire the waves that would take her far from there the next day.
A storm was approaching, she concluded as her daydreams brought her back to reality. And with the storm, it would be easier for her to escape without being followed. In the unlikely event that Ace or Luffy managed to get a boat, it would be impossible for them to set sail in the middle of a brewing storm.
"Nami, have you ever seen a mermaid?" Luffy's question snapped her out of her thoughts as she lowered her head back to the ground and breathed in the salty smell of the sea.
"No," she pondered for a few seconds about the phrase that hung on her tongue, "but I know a cowfish."
Luffy's eyes widened, and Ace snorted, throwing a piece of seaweed at her face. She screamed for a moment before sitting up, her tongue with salty-tasting and sand in her eyebrows. Her gaze full of promises of war.
"There can't be cowfish here, Nami."
She huffed.
"Or maybe you just haven't seen them."
Luffy rolled over in the sand and turned toward her, eyes wide open, filled with an illusion that threatened to steal her breath.
"Have you found treasure?"
She narrowed her eyes, sat up, and smiled proudly.
"Even better, I stole them."
Luffy's eyes sparkled.
"Like pirates."
The words struck her like a blow, and Nami staggered at the unexpected attack.
"Never. I'll never be a pirate, Luffy. I steal from those bastards."
The two stared at each other for a few seconds in silence until Luffy flopped onto the sand to pick up a crab from the ground to play with.
"Then we should hate each other, but I like you."
"The trick to being a good thief is getting people to like you before you pick their pocket."
The boy laughed.
"I only have beetles and crabs in mine, Nami. And I wouldn't stop liking you even if you stole them. You fed me with your lentils. We're friends."
Snorting in disbelief, Nami stood up and approached the quiet sea that watched her, the only witness to her treacherous plans.
"One day, I'll hurt you, and you'll have no choice but to hate me. I'm very good at being hated by others. It's my natural talent," she said with arrogance, but inside, that voice twisted, telling her of a simple life alongside Luffy and Ace. On an island full of windmills instead of fish-men.
"Your talent is making maps and drawing. Fear isn't a talent."
"I'm not afraid!"
"You—"
A shout interrupted them, and as they both turned their heads toward the eternal peacemaker of their arguments, a massive wave rolled them both back to shore.
When the salty water retreated, Luffy was coughing on the ground, with a starfish stuck to his forehead.
"Ace!" The reprimand came naturally, and Nami startled at hearing herself sound so familiar with someone other than Nojiko.
"If I drown you, will they send me to prison or give me a trophy for ending boredom?"
She approached the boy with her hair blowing in the wind and her fists clenched.
"By the time the Navy arrives, you'll be dead," the threat came full of venom, and Ace laughed as he ran.
"Don't kill my brother!"
As the three of them fought between sand and water, with the sun scribbling on their skin and insults and laughter serving as background music, Nami decided to forget the countdown, the smell of rain, and the storm clouds. Just for a little while. A little while longer by their side.
When the sun fell and their wet clothes turned cold, the three of them began the trek back home. Ace, with his voice hoarse from shouting so much, happily recounted the way to survive an attack from a hungry black bear, and she made notes as the story drifted further and further from reality.
The sun had burned her cheeks, and she felt the tightness of the greenish bruises. The seawater had plastered her hair to her face, and Luffy, exhausted from so much play with an element that already wore him down, enjoyed the view from his brother's back.
Ace and she were so caught up in their own arguments that Luffy's clear exclamation took them by surprise.
When the two turned toward him, they saw the bright orange of a huge beetle planted on his cheek. He was looking at her with such brilliant wonder that it could have darkened the world. Her heart vibrated under the weight of that emotion.
"Nami, look! It's you! You've come flying" his excitement scared the insect away, and it darted toward Luffy's black, curly hair.
"That's a beetle; I'm a person!"
Ace's body trembled with the laughter he was holding back in his stomach.
"It crawls with legs just like you."
"I don't—"
"Portgas D. Ace?" The deep, strong voice startled all three of them. Nami hadn't heard his footsteps, though that didn't surprise her. What disturbed her more was that neither Ace nor Luffy had heard him either, just like the last time they had been caught off guard by footsteps in the forest.
The three of them turned cautiously. Nami stepped back, alarmed, with the eyes of someone who senses imminent danger.
The Marine seagull insignia made her tremble while the two brothers stared at the man who had caught up with them without flinching. He was tall, young, with black hair and sharp eyebrows. She had never seen him before.
"Yeah?" Ace's question came out unguarded, without measuring what might happen next, because she was sure that if he had thought it through, he never would have taken that step forward.
A glint from the corner of her eye caught the girl's attention, and among the bushes, she made out another face and a seagull cap. Alarmed, Nami spun around and caught the gaze of two dozen eyes hidden behind the bushes that surrounded them.
Ace's back tensed as she instinctively moved closer to him and clutched Luffy's pants, her fingers curling with tension and rising fear.
"Portgas D. Ace," the leader of the group of guards repeated, this time without the implied question in the name, "for the charge of rebellion and the murder of the king, you are officially under arrest by order of the Goa government from this moment."
Nami usually prided herself on how quickly she could come up with solutions to problems. This time, it took her two more seconds to comprehend the meaning of the accusations. Her eyes, wide open to the point of pain, slowly turned to Ace, who hadn't moved a single muscle in response to the words.
"I suggest you surrender without causing any trouble," the officer warned as he saw Luffy leap up, still clinging to his brother's shoulders.
"There must be a mistake, he didn't..." the girl hurried to say, still with the shock half-digested in the pit of her stomach.
"Proceed."
The order drew a dozen Marines from their hiding spots, all with weapons already pointed at the three of them, loaded and ready.
Ace gently lowered his brother from his back, while the weapons carefully tracked his movement. Luffy raised his fist, defiant, and a deathly promise pointed straight at his forehead.
"Luffy, stop!" Ace's order was cold, fearless, spoken with an authority that made Nami's skin prickle. "Nami is here. You need to protect her, not me. I haven't done anything. I'm innocent. Nothing's going to happen to me."
Luffy turned toward a sound that Nami couldn't fully catch. A pair of handcuffs hung from the guard's hand.
"Tell Dadan. Call Grandpa."
The command froze Luffy, who looked between Nami and Ace with visible indecision. Nami wished he would move, but at the same time, she feared the moment a wrong step would trigger the cannons.
The order paralyzed Luffy, who looked at Nami and Ace respectively with palpable indecision. She wished he would move, yet at the same time feared the moment when one wrong step would set off the cannons.
"Ace, no..."
A punch knocked Luffy to the ground, and a strong blow felled Nami. Luffy's ragged, fear-filled breath ruffled her bangs, out of rhythm, and despite her attempts to stay strong, her cheeks became wet with helpless tears.
"Let him go! He's innocent! Take your hands off my brother! Ace is innocent!" Luffy's shouts echoed in Nami's head, colliding with memories of fish-men and blood.
An iron-covered boot slammed into the ground between Luffy's head and hers. Nami trembled, her chest vibrating with terrified sobs.
"Shut up, boy, or I'll smash your friend's head in."
Reality became increasingly vague, drowned out by the vibrations in her chest and the gasps for breath. Feet shuffled around them. A sharp ringing deafened her entirely, and the world spun and spun, leaving her lying there on the cold ground, with sharp stones digging into her cheek.
The cold of the boot pinched the skin.
Her hands felt sticky with blood. Her mother's lifeless eyes stared back at her from the reflection in the metal.
She shut her eyes and held her breath.
"Nami."
It was barely a whisper, but the warmth of the breath on her forehead startled her.
She didn't dare open her eyes until a hand gently brushed her tear-soaked cheek.
"Nami, we have to..."
The familiarity of Luffy, of the jeans that she had already come to associate with him, of those soft fingers, of a voice that she already felt like hers, pulled her out of that dark sea in which she had sunk into, and the ascent was so fast that instead of breathing, she sobbed. And once she started crying, she couldn't stop.
Sorry but with the work, the final part of Master and christmas update was imposible for me.
Buuuut here we are, with the a new chapter and the start of the plot.
Well, Did you expect this plot twist? hehehe
By the way, my first language isn't english, please forgive my mistakes.
(Tomorrow I am going to edit some details, don't panic)