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Chapter Text

Nami's whole face hurt after the beating; she could barely chew. She had long since developed a dislike for legumes, but her teeth would still hurt for a couple of days, and that’s what was on the menu. She packed three cans of lentils in her bag before taking one of Arlong’s ships and leaving. If she took one more punch, she’d end up locked in the map room for a month, and she needed to get out of there.

Nojiko didn’t even have time to glance at her from the bed before Nami bolted out of the house and set sail.

The black eye limited her range of vision, and Nami knew she wouldn’t get very far before the sea swallowed her up. But she needed to put as much distance as possible between her and the fish-men. With them nearby, she couldn’t breathe easily, and she needed to focus to plan her next big theft. Plus, she couldn’t forget the reason why her two fingers were bandaged, three ribs were sore, her jaw was loose, and one eye was blind; she had to keep mapping.

Arlong had already warned her that if she spent more time pillaging than drawing maps, he’d lock her up in that cursed room for a year to make sure she wouldn’t forget.

She was sick of his threats, but unfortunately, she knew how real they were.

She had just turned fourteen, her chest had started to grow, and distractions for thefts had become easier. Nami still felt uncomfortable wearing overly revealing clothes, but little by little, she discovered the advantages of certain movements and theatrics that were taking shape to prey on the most unfortunate pirates.

When the island she considered her home disappeared from view, the tension lifted from her shoulders and the sudden weakness brought a few tears to her eyes, which got lost among the waves.

Nami didn’t like crying, but when she sailed away from Cocoyashi, the emotions she always kept tied up surfaced, tormented. She forced herself to calm down as soon as she felt her cheeks grow cold, embarrassed by a weakness she despised.

Once she had composed herself, she grabbed her small cartography kit and studied the islands she had illustrated so far. The ones marked with crosses or circles, now blurred, spoke to her of days spent alone with paper and pen, of hidden problems and difficulties yet to be found.

The next one, she decided as she traced a black cross on the paper with her finger, would be a small island where she could heal while meeting Arlong’s demands. Windmill Island would be perfect for that—Dawn Island.

When she lowered the sails, hiding the ship among the rocks of a steep cliff, the full moon shone high in the sky. Three days had passed since she left Cocoyashi, and her bones hurt less. Thanks to the silvery light filtering through thin clouds, Nami was able to disembark without much trouble.

Her drawing tools clinked as she walked away without looking back, stepping over stones toward a beach of soft, white sand.

The large windmills welcomed her like tall giants with wide arms, standing watch.

The spell of the darkness enveloping her as she walked comforted her. It was too late for night workers and too early for fishermen and farmers, and the solitude felt magical. Nami loved surrounding herself with shadows when she arrived at islands. The nights often revealed weaknesses and secrets hidden beneath the sunlight.

A gentle breeze blew, and the windmills whispered as their blades turned, and her hair tickled the nape of her neck. When she passed through the village, she sighed in relief. She hadn’t seen a single Marine outpost, and the humble houses seemed just right for fishermen but offensive to the nobles. She wouldn’t face many problems in that town.

Once she’d checked her surroundings and knew there wasn’t much she could do at such an odd hour, she headed to the grove visible at the edge of the village. To her surprise, the trees had branches sturdy enough to hold her. The branches grew broad and strong, almost inviting her to hide among them. Nami didn’t take long to accept that invitation, finding a thick, covered area that seemed safe.

Nami had always been agile, but her ribs and fingers slowed her down as she tried to climb the chosen tree safely. Curses and gasps escaped her as she climbed, but it was worth it when she reached her selected branch.

From up there, the world shrouded in darkness felt tiny, and Nami felt distant, removed from the reality waiting for her when she’d set foot on the ground again. For now, the night belonged to her, and content, she sought refuge in the solitude and silence as if they were old friends.

She opened the tube containing all her main cartography tools, pulled out a half-used candle, a box of matches, paper, and ink. A long night awaited her as she worked on the map preparations, but at least it would be a good night. No nightmares, no threats—just ink and maps.

Nami woke to the sound of jingling coins and a smile on her face. She loved the metallic clink of coins colliding, always singing about golden freedom when she brought them close to her ear.

The previous night, she had collapsed as soon as the candle flickered and finally met the melted wax that had stuck to the tree after hours of work. As she slowly regained her senses, the sweet sensation of gold faded, giving way to the strange sound of metal against metal, just inches from her head. It was usually hard for her to hear such sounds, so the noise unsettled her. Puzzled, she reached behind her, searching for the persistent sound that stopped as soon as her fingers brushed against a warm, unfamiliar body.

Her eyes shot open, blinded by the midday sun. Her face, already sore from the sudden movement over her numbed bruise, twisted in fear. Someone robbing her? Impossible.

The movement was so sudden and on such a small surface that her knees lost their footing, and she felt the void beneath her body.

Before her heart could even return to its rapid pace, a hand grabbed her arm, preventing her from falling from the great height.

The thief and savior watched her closely, under a too-long dark fringe, with a smile on his face and one of her golden compasses in his hand.

Silence lingered for a few seconds before Nami refocused on the tool the boy was holding.

"Why are you stealing a compass from me?"

The boy, who couldn’t have been much older than her, smiled even wider at her question.

"Oh, I didn’t mean to steal. I saw one of your legs from below and thought you were food, but when I climbed up and saw all your cool stuff, I wanted to know what it’s for."

She pulled her arm away from his hand and sat more securely on the branch. Nami didn’t get the feeling the boy was lying, nor did he seem like a thief. If he were a thief, she would have recognized him as one, but his appearance and face spoke of innocence and fun, not caution.

"They’re cartography tools. I make maps."

The boy’s dark eyes sparkled at her words, and the excitement on his round face made her smile.

"Are you going to make a map of the island?!" His enthusiastic shout reddened Nami’s cheeks, flattered by his genuine admiration.

Unable to respond to his excitement without stammering, Nami nodded slowly.

"First, I have to explore the island, and..."

He stood up, and the branch trembled under the two of them. The redhead hurried to grab a compass and a quill that had rolled away with the movement.

"Then I can be your guide! I want to play at making maps too, so we can be friends. My name is Monkey D. Luffy."

The declarations, one after the other, each stranger than the last, left her unable to respond with anything other than her name.

"Nami."

Luffy’s hand lowered to her eye level, and she squinted, even more confused.

"Friends seal their deals with handshakes," the boy explained with his usual overwhelming cheerfulness.

"I don’t have any friends."

Luffy crouched in front of her and brought his hand closer to hers, waiting.

"I don’t have any either, so we can be friends."

Nami couldn’t have friends. She couldn’t afford burdens like that. She wouldn’t even know how to treat someone with that label on their back. Having a friend would be reckless. She knew it, of course, she knew she wouldn’t be able to maintain that relationship for long. But despite everything, and without quite understanding the pull, she raised her hand and shook his.

There was no static electricity or strange winds when the deal was sealed. But despite everything, Nami felt a tingling in her chest.

A friend.

Her first friend.

Chapter Text

Cold was expensive, so Nami loved the heat; she never had to spend much money on lodging and clothing when the weather was warm. However, on the first day on Dawn Island, she began to question her own preferences.

The heat had never bothered her when she traveled alone to and fro mapping islands and stealing from pirates, but Luffy's arms were warm, and he was a very clingy person. Nami found that kind of closeness strange and uncomfortable, but she couldn't blame him. The boy spoke more through gestures than words, and those touches and grips seemed to come naturally to him.

This newfound friendship, which she had accepted without really understanding why and now attributed to the idea of using Luffy to map the island faster, felt odd. On the first day, he had clung to her while they went from place to place as he showed her the points of interest in his village. These turned out to be; a bird’s nest that had just laid eggs, the mayor's house—where they were kicked out with shouting as soon as Luffy broke one of the flowerpots by the entrance—and Makino's bar, where a kind woman, worried about the bruises on her face, offered her a glass of juice while Luffy finished off the bar’s milk supply.

Nervously, Nami fingered the sad coins rolling around in the inner pocket of her skirt, barely touching each other. But Makino had kindly invited them both, following Luffy’s cheerful order to put both their expenses on his treasure tab.

That night, they parted ways before dinner after spending the afternoon walking along the coast. Luffy had drawn pictures of fish, strange mermaids, and tangerines after she told him she liked them. To make up for lost time with Luffy, Nami forced herself to stay up well into the night, drawing two or three coves in the surrounding area that had remained blank on her map because of the boy’s antics and laughter.

The second day wasn't much more productive. Nami woke up with aching bones from the hard tree branch where she had made her shelter and a swollen face from the night’s cold, which quickly turned into oppressive heat.

Her poorly healed fingers were so swollen that it was difficult to hold the pen, though she forced herself to keep drawing.

Luffy arrived, happily repeating her name, his smile promising more games and laughter. Nami began to feel overwhelmed by noon when she saw how little progress she'd made on the nearly blank sheet of paper.

Arlong's teeth mingled with her midday stomach pain—nerves made her hungry, and with the few coins she had, she could only afford one meal a day. She liked eating at night when no one would judge her half-finished can of lentils or her long bites on the tiny legumes. Biting them helped her check the real condition of her loose teeth.

"Nami, Nami, Nami, Nami..."

Luffy's voice made her grip the pencil harder as they stood, looking out at the cape where the boy had brought her. The windmill blades turned nearby, but far enough away that the echo of her name only reached her.

"Nami, Nami, Na..."

Luffy suddenly fell silent when she confronted him. Her skin burned, and her ears rang from the frustration of being interrupted while she worked.

"What?" she barely raised her voice, but her tone was enough to make Luffy quiet for more than two seconds.

"Aren’t you hungry? You haven't eaten anything since you got up, and my stomach is already rumbling."

Her anger dissipated in an instant. It felt strange for someone to talk to her about her habits. It was true that, when she was in Cocoyashi, Nojiko would scold her if she skipped meals or lost weight, but she spent so little time at home lately that her sister barely had a chance to tell her off. The truth was, she hadn't brought much money and didn't know how long she would stay on Dawn Island, so she needed to save. She couldn’t spend more than she would earn from this trip without profit. There were no pirates here to rob.

"I'm not hungry. If you want, go eat and leave me to work in peace."

He pouted, grumbling. Reluctantly, he clung to Nami’s arm, looking at her with pleading, puppy-dog eyes.

"Yesterday, you didn’t come with me to eat, and friends eat together. Besides, Ace is waiting for me—we’re supposed to eat with Makino."

Nami tilted her head, trying to convey through a look all the exasperation she couldn’t put into words.

"Luffy, we barely know each other. I'm not going to eat with people who know you and who made plans to eat with you, not me."

He grumbled under his breath, still hanging onto her arm. A tingling sensation began to spread through her limbs from the strange weight she bore, and she wondered if Luffy would ever tire of touching her, or if he would feel disgusted when she started to sweat.

"But we’re friends."

"For two days! I don’t know who Ace is. Makino and he will probably get mad when they see you show up with me."

"Why would they get mad about eating with my friend? You’re kind of weird, Nami."

The boy's strange logic made her snort as she freed herself from his grip. It was starting to make her dizzy that this stranger was treating her like they had known each other forever. She always walked on eggshells around people, and Luffy trampled through with his carefree philosophy.

"You're the weird one!"

He narrowed his eyes, and Nami felt her cheeks flush with anger at the evident doubt on her new friend’s face.

"Fine, but can we go eat now? It’s not fun playing with maps when my stomach hurts."

She huffed.

"I'm not hungry."

Unfortunately for Nami, her stomach betrayed her with a loud growl, causing Luffy to burst into his characteristic laugh.

"Come on, let’s eat. Makino makes delicious food. I bet Ace is already mad because I’m late. He gets really worked up when I’m late."

Luffy's comment sent a shiver down her spine as he dragged her towards the windmills.

Nami had known from the start that this friendship wasn’t a good idea. She needed Luffy to map the island quickly, and if he was going to waste her time, it was best to put an end to this charade sooner rather than later. And from what she could see, he wasn’t helping her, only slowing down her work. She didn’t have friends, didn’t want them, and didn’t need them. She shouldn't have let him keep talking when she first saw him in the tree, his hands on her things. She should have known he would cause trouble.

The tiny weight of the coins in her pocket anchored her to the ground. Her cheeks heated with the shame of such a small weight and such a big appetite.

"I told you, I'm not hungry!" Her stomach betrayed her again.

Luffy pulled her towards the windmills once more.

"Your belly doesn't talk when it's full."

"Mine’s very chatty."

He squinted at her lie as they both struggled to go in different directions.

"Why do you want to go hungry?"

"I’m not hungry!"

Another growl interrupted the conversation.

"Liar."

"Annoying."

Hungry and fed up, Nami finally exploded, overwhelmed by her emotions.

"Leave me alone! I have to keep working, and I’m not hungry! Go eat with your family, I'll stay here."

Anger grew in her chest like a storm cloud, and the bigger it got, the more lightning bolts it would throw. Luffy, standing in front of her, seemed to grow in size too as they stood there, motionless, each determined to stick to their position.

In the end, it was Nami who had to look away, unable to bear the weight of the reproach in those big eyes. She sat cross-legged on the ground, the paper on her knees, pencil clutched between her fingers. Her hair fell over her eyes, as if waiting for that curtain to separate her from the boy who watched her, tormented, standing to her right.

"My brother is waiting for me."

She nodded as she drew an excessively straight line along the shape of the cape.

"Okay."

"I’ll come back here later."

"Okay."

Silence reigned for a while.

"Are you going to leave, or are you waiting for me to finish?"

Nami forced herself to open her mouth and speak. Lies wrapped around her tongue like sugar; they had always been her allies.

"No, we’ll meet back here."

The boy’s excitement stung the back of her neck as he jumped and laughed, but she wasn’t going to back down now. One more mistake in her work for Arlong and the consequences would be brutal. She couldn’t afford to lose more time; the beatings were bearable, but not the lost time. And Nami knew she had done worse things than lie to a kid.

"See you later, then! I’ll bring you something to eat, and you can meet Ace. He’s a bit grumpy—you’ll probably like him."

"See you later," she confirmed with a smile.

She didn’t like sad goodbyes, and if the boy was going to forget her soon, she preferred his last memory of her to be cheerful.

Luffy returned the smile with enthusiasm, his teeth reflecting the joy of their next meeting. By the time he disappeared over the hill, Nami was already on her feet. She walked in the opposite direction without looking back even once.

It had been an entertaining summer dream. Being friends with a boy and running along the beach while Luffy laughed, and for a few seconds, Nami forgot her troubles. But it had been nothing more than that, a foolish and childish summer dream.

Chapter Text

Nami didn’t know how to keep promises, she only knew how to fulfill deals. For her, deals were sacred, but promises could be broken. She was a firm believer in an eye for an eye.

She imagined Luffy would come looking for her after lunch and would leave once he saw she wasn’t there. Understanding that promises were nothing but wet paper was also part of growing up. Nami was experienced in the matter of helping children mature. She had already convinced many to abandon useless promises of revenge and dreams of the future around Arlong Park. Promises were overrated.

And yet, that night, when she finished the day’s work, her mind kept circling around the idea of a pair of dark eyes filled with excitement. Luffy's laughter haunted her sleep until the early hours of the morning, and the next day she woke up with a back more sore than usual. Though the pain didn’t stop her from going out to map again. Around noon, with the sun overhead, three nights of poor sleep, and an untreated beating, she encountered an enormous wall that forced her to sit down and hold back the urge to cry. Until then, she had calculated that she would finish the work within a week, and now she was faced with a damned city.

She hated complicated islands. Arlong insisted on reviewing the hand-drawn streets, so Nami was clear that as soon as she had the map, she would send a couple of fish-men to the island to check the drawing.

Resentful of herself for believing she would only lose a couple of days to that torture, she returned to her small refuge to rest for a while and prepare the necessary materials to trace the streets of the city.

Her stomach began to rumble as the afternoon sun filtered through the tree branches and touched the numerous sketches scattered in the wind, among the green leaves and acorns. So, she reluctantly gathered everything and slid down the trunk to the ground. First, she needed to figure out how to enter the wall, and once inside, she could ponder the cartography method she would use for the streets.

Even though she had a clear direction, her rumbling stomach and the memory of those black eyes narrowing under smiles made her change course, heading toward the windmill village. Along the way, it occurred to her that it might be a good idea to ask there about the entrance to the wall—perhaps someone could tell her more about the city or whatever was hidden behind it.

When she left the grove and saw the windmill blades cutting through the horizon, her stomach churned, and her heart raced. The nerves would kill her, and the worst part was that she couldn’t hide the reason for them in any way. Her cheekbone ached as she forced herself to take a deep breath and continue.

Luffy might be there, in the village. If she ran into him, Nami knew she would feel something, and what she feared most was recognizing regret among the mix of emotions. Because she couldn’t afford to regret it, she had chosen her path. Nami couldn’t look back, and the boy's black eyes made her doubt. Someday, the doubt of “what if” would kill her, and she hoped that day wasn’t today.

In the meadow, near the cape where she had promised to wait, the knot of nerves turned into a tangle when she saw the silhouette of a straw hat outlined by the sunlight. Luffy was sitting in the same spot she had fled from the day before. In his lap was a small cloth bag stained with grease, untouched.

The teenager, upon hearing her footsteps, lifted his head and craned his neck in her direction. A smile full of teeth and excitement greeted her, despite the betrayal, the attempted escape, despite knowing that she hadn’t behaved well and that the promise was broken.

Luffy smiled, and Nami's black eye throbbed in pain as tears blurred her vision.

“What are you doing here?!”

The shout came out strangled from her mouth, and Luffy responded with a hungry roar and a laugh full of amusement.

“You said we’d meet here, and I thought you’d wait for me, but it’s been my turn to wait. Now my belly is as talkative as yours, Nami! We share hunger.”

A terrible urge to scream overwhelmed the girl, who, after days of frustration, pain, and exhaustion, finally felt that she had reached the end of her patience. The explosion came violently. Nami threw herself at the boy with such force that it knocked him down into the grass, with the stupid food crushed between them.

“You’re an idiot! I didn’t want you to wait for me. I left because I didn’t want to see you again, Luffy. We’re not friends, and we never will be because I’ve never wanted to be your friend.”

The words were accompanied by blows and shakes that the boy accepted without resistance, as if he deserved the beating instead of her.

From Nami, who was a traitor, a snake. Nami, who lived off others' suffering and theft. Nami, who preferred aching bones to crying out of rage in front of Arlong. Nami, who didn’t deserve friends, who was horrible, a witch. Nami, who hurt and destroyed anyone who came near her.

The shaking and ridiculous blows she used to release her rage turned into sobs as she continued. Her stomach burned with hunger, her head buzzed from exhaustion, and her heart ached again.

“We’re not friends! I lied to you. I’m a bad person. I don’t want friends!”

The boy let out a grunt under the continued barrage of weak punches and desperate grips.

“You know, my grandpa always says love hurts, and your punches really hurt a lot,” Luffy said between laughs, placing a hand on her shoulder. His black eyes stayed fixed on her, and Nami pulled away, ashamed, with tear-streaked cheeks and a blocked nose. “Even though you lie a bit, your laughter can’t tell lies. You like playing with me, which is why I wanted to share my food with you.”

The tears mixed with her throat, and when she spoke, Nami felt like she was crying out words.

“I don’t love you. I can’t love you. Because I don’t deserve to have friends.”

Luffy moved the crushed food off his lap and placed it between them as if it were a peace offering instead of a rag filled with stains and bread crumbs.

“You’re just like me. You can barely see out of one eye, and you haven’t complained once, but now you’re crying because you know that being alone hurts more than being hurt. So, I know you’re lying to me—we are friends. Besides, you may be strange, but even the strangest person in the world deserves friends.”

The boy’s words blurred her vision as she knelt beside him on the ground.

“Doesn’t your stomach rumble after crying? I’m starving.”

Luffy waved the food in front of her again, his cheeks sunken and his eyes pleading. Nami's stomach growled, and he didn’t wait to uncover a cheese and hard, stale ham sandwich after a day outdoors.

A sob made her lower her gaze, her mouth filling with saliva and her legs going weak.

She was so hungry that her throat burned, and her sides ached. She had forced herself not to think about food so many times that seeing it in the daylight caused her physical pain. Hunger mixed with her wounds, exhaustion, and the fear of giving in to the word “friend.” Nami had to lie down on the ground, the sweet warmth of the sun on her temple, under Luffy’s watchful gaze, his mouth already full of crumbs.

“I’d like to be like you someday,” Nami whispered.

“How?” Luffy’s voice faded between bites.

“Free.”

Luffy laughed heartily as he offered her a piece of sandwich that Nami accepted under the sweet and calm gaze of the clouds.

“One of my dreams is to be the freest person in the world.”

She took a bite of the bread and savored the flavor as she raised her eyebrows to look at him.

“Aren’t you afraid that being the freest person in the world means others live beneath your feet?”

Luffy scratched his neck in silence, and before speaking, he broke off another piece of sandwich and handed it to her.

“Well then, once I’m on top, I’ll free everyone so they can do what they want.” She nodded, satisfied. “What do you want to do, Nami?”

“I want to be a navigator and map the entire world.”

Luffy smiled and squared his shoulders with solemnity as he watched the light shimmer in her reddish hair. He swallowed a piece of bread before speaking.

“Then you’ll be perfect in my crew.”

Nami tilted her head, narrowing her eyes, questioning, unable to speak with her mouth full.

“The crew of the Pirate King, of course, because I, Monkey D. Luffy, am going to be the freest man in the world—the Pirate King.”

She swallowed hard, and the bread went down the wrong way. The coughing bent her in half and burned her lungs. If that was his revenge for making him wait without food or water for a day, it was well-crafted. Nami would never have suspected he’d try to kill her while she devoured a cheese sandwich.

Chapter Text

Nami tried to leave dreams locked away at night; hope didn’t hurt once it was asleep. She hated letting herself be carried away by dreams. When she did, she would often see her mother’s eyes, her smile, hear praise surrounded by shadows, and spend days with her head bowed, thinking about what could have been and never was. Dreaming was a weakness Nami couldn’t afford.

Luffy fed on dreams. And he was so hungry for them that Nami forgot to remember that she feared them. Luffy saw the waves and thought about sailing instead of salt. He saw the clouds and dreamed of islands in the sky instead of rain. He saw the sun and spoke of fire lizards, rather than the heat. He was a boy made of dreams, and Nami forgot to remember that people like him were dangerous.

"You don’t know what you’re talking about. Why would you want to be that kind of monster?"

Luffy blinked and turned his neck toward Nami with that look of his, the one that questioned her sanity. The sanity of the person who wasn’t talking about the Pirate King or impossible dreams of freedom!

"I’m not a monster, Nami!"

"All pirates are monsters."

Luffy flared up, as red as apples at such an accusation. Nami, who had been lying down until then, sat up, alert to the threat.

"That’s a lie! You just haven’t met Shanks. He’s a really good pirate."

Nami cautiously watched the boy’s tension, although the threat seemed minimal. One never knew when anger would get out of control and turn into blows.

"Pirates are never good, they loot, rape, and kill. Those people don’t want freedom, they want slaves to beat. Dreaming of being a pirate, let alone the Pirate King, is madness and idiocy."

Luffy jumped off the ground, angry, after eating the last piece of sandwich, his arms outstretched, and his eyes nearly shut from the fury.

"That’s not true! Take it back!"

Nami also stood up, arms crossed, tense, bracing for a blow.

"Never."

"When you become a pirate, you’ll see not everyone is bad!"

She stepped back, stung by his words.

"I don’t want to be a pirate, Luffy. I never will!"

He crossed his arms too, defiant, and it became a battle of wills.

"How are you going to be in my crew if you’re not a pirate, Nami? That can’t happen."

She scoffed, stepped forward, and lifted her chin higher. Nojiko always told her she was too proud, and maybe she was right, considering that instead of hiding, she confronted the problems.

"I never said I was going to be in your crew."

Luffy puffed out his chest like a peacock and raised his shoulders to his ears.

"You’ll see."

She scoffed again.

"Never."

"You’re so…"

But Nami never found out what she was because an arm appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Luffy by the neck and forcing him to his knees in the grass with such authority and strength that Nami had to jump three steps back to get away from the danger.

"Where the hell have you been? You didn’t come home to sleep. Dadan and the others have been looking for you like crazy since I asked them about you. Are you an idiot? Well, don’t answer that. I already know the answer."

The boy who had appeared out of nowhere to scold Luffy had black hair, freckles, and a strange hat that covered his eyes, which were probably dark. Nami would bet her life that this was Luffy’s brother. The reprimand came from familiarity; no one insulted someone like that unless they were related by blood.

She must have made some sound, still frozen from the sudden appearance, because the boy looked up, and when he saw her, he blushed all the way to his eyebrows.

"Go-g-good afternoon? Meet to please you" the teen stuttered, blushing even more. "I mean, nice meet with you!!" He bowed so deeply that his hat fell to the ground due to the greeting. "Thank you for taking care of my brother!"

Luffy snickered from the ground, still with his brother’s hands on his shoulders.

"You’re going to need more lessons from Makino, Ace."

The boy hit Luffy so hard on the head that tears sprang from Luffy’s eyes, and Nami recalled what he’d said earlier about love and pain. Apparently, he knew well what he was talking about.

"Shut up. Can’t you see your girlfriend is watching?"

The girl let out a small, disapproving sound and waved her hands, trying to shake off the label.

"At most, I’m his friend, and I’m still thinking about that," she said quickly.

Luffy grunted at the response.

"She’s my navigator, Ace. She knows how to make maps! She’s way smarter than you."

"I’m not your navigator, idiot!"

Ace smiled with a sympathy that sent chills down Nami’s spine. Resigned, he scratched his neck with one hand while patting Luffy with the other, who smiled as if the argument wasn’t about him.

"Once he gets something in his head, it’s impossible to change his mind. Sorry…" He left the sentence hanging, looking for a name.

"Nami. Nice to meet you."

The boy extended his hand with an insecure smile.

"I’m Ace, this idiot’s brother."

Luffy jumped up, broke the handshake, and draped his arms over both of them with a laugh that deafened Nami, who was used to solitude, silence, and whispered conversations.

"Well, now you know each other, we can go eat more. I’m starving, and then we’ll play with maps, right, Nami?"

Overwhelmed by the closeness and where things were heading, she let Luffy pull her along for a few steps before a sharp nose sliced through her thoughts.

"No, I’m not hungry." Her traitorous stomach growled again. "Actually, I was heading to the village to ask how to get past the wall gate."

The two brothers exchanged a glance, holding a silent conversation. Ace moved around his brother to stand on Nami’s other side. Even though she knew he wasn’t a threat, the girl shrank back at the sight of his tall, broad back. He kept his distance, but his eyes studied her carefully, fixed on her swollen cheek. Nami lowered her head, nervous, aware that despite Ace’s slow movements, the sound of her stomach and the signs of her injuries had given her away.

Embarrassed and terrified that someone would see through her facade, Nami pulled away from Luffy and stepped back with excuses painted on her face.

"I’m really sorry, but I’m in a hurry to reach the city. I want to finish the job as soon as possible."

Ace opened his mouth to speak, but Luffy, with his head tilted in curiosity, beat him to it.

"You didn’t tell me you worked for someone, Nami."

The blood drained from her face as she realized she had slipped up badly. Her ribs throbbed as she took a breath, desperate as the urgency flooded her. Instinct told her to run, and her nerves urged her to head for the sea and never return. But deep inside, where a strange redness she had silenced long ago still spoke, she wished, with a painful intensity, to stay with them, to join them for a meal, to laugh with a full mouth while they bickered.

"I have to…"

One more step back, and the distance would be insurmountable.

Chapter Text

Nami had the feeling that living life with Ace and Luffy would be easy. It would consist of going with the flow of laughter, fights, and nonsense. No worries, no strings attached, no threats.

The two lived in a small, messy treehouse. Dirty clothes piled up in a corner. A petrified sock hung from one of the kitchen's pieces of furniture. A vine had slowly begun to invade the house from the corner of the door, and one of the curtains separating them from the outside was tied to an aged illustration of three deformed little figures nailed to the wall. Still, Nami’s heart fluttered, warm, as she sat, for the first time in years, in a house that felt like a home. Her own home had long since become just a stopping place where tension and anxiety nested in the corners.

In Ace and Luffy's house, the sun streamed through the poorly nailed planks and bathed them in light, the rumpled blankets a testament to how close the two slept, and the poorly taped list of food they kept in the stash of their tiny pantry spoke of a happy life. It was a stark contrast to Nami's room at Arlong Park. The corners of her room were full of ghosts, spiders, and fear, between neatly folded sheets, the smell of ink, papyrus, and old iron.

For the first time in her life, Nami felt jealous of dirt.

After eating a disgusting but stomach-filling soup, Ace and Luffy geared up, determined to accompany her to town, despite her insistence that she could go alone. Nami knew they’d get bored with her, but the thought of going with them warmed her fingertips.

As they walked, the afternoon light filtering through the tree branches reflected off the straw strands of Luffy's hat, and she felt like it was glowing as he led the way through the forest. he was a small sun guiding lost cats like her toward light and warmth.

“Look, Nami, a beetle just like you!”

The girl was so lost in her thoughts that the shout made her jump instinctively, digging her nails into her palms because her first reaction to fear was always to silence it with the distraction of pain. She wasn't the only one surprised; Ace cursed under his breath long before the pain of nails digging into flesh reached his mind.

She covered it up with a huff as she approached Luffy, with Ace beside her. She cautiously stopped behind the brothers, keeping a prudent distance from the colorful bugs the teenager was studying with admiration.

“I don't like beetles; they have long, serrated noses,” Nami said, wrinkling her nose, horrified by the movement of those small, hard legs.

“They’re not noses, they're horns.”

“They’re the same, what does it matter if they're noses or horns?”

Luffy pinched the beetle's forked horn and quickly turned towards Nami to show it with palpable indignation.

“Horns are cool, noses aren't. Horns come out of the head and are long and...”

The girl jumped back with a choked scream and fell on her back to the ground. Ace, crouched next to Luffy, pinched his brother’s cheek and stretched it in a terribly unnatural way.

Nami, more petrified by the sight, let out a strangled sound.

“What the heck are you doing, idiot? Don’t you see you're scaring Nami?”

The teenager whimpered as best he could with his cheek stretched inches from his chin.

“Wh-what..?”

The girl, wide-eyed and mouth agape, scooted back a few steps, terrified.

Ace looked at his hand and, with it, Luffy's stretched cheek, and burst into laughter, leaving Nami even more perplexed.

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt him. He’s a Devil Fruit user, the Gomu-Gomu no Mi.”

“A Devil Fruit?!”

Luffy freed himself from his brother’s grip and stretched his cheeks himself so she could see the strange ability from another angle. His teeth protruded beneath his skin in a grin.

“I ate it by accident; Shanks didn’t even notice.”

At the mention of the name, Nami narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

“Never let a pirate off the hook that easily.”

He clenched his teeth and shook his head vigorously.

“Not all pirates are bad! At least, not all of them.”

She was about to contradict him when Ace cut both of them off by making them duck behind some bushes, watching for a movement she hadn’t noticed before, too focused on arguing with Luffy to pay attention.

Two adults in tattered clothes appeared behind the tall bushes just as Nami looked up to assess the possible danger from their hiding spot. Beneath her, Luffy also eyed the intruders. Ace didn’t even move, so quiet his breathing blended with the breeze.

“I hate wandering through the damn dump,” said the stockier man, who, despite his tattered clothes, wore a good-quality handkerchief under his nose, “then I spend two days with a cold. My lungs get worse each time. That fire only mixed the stench of the dead with the damn trash.”

His companion, a hunched, short man, shot him a nasty look, hidden by the distance but not from the trio hiding a few meters in front of them.

“The sooner we finish this, the sooner you can go back to pretending you’ve never set foot in the slums. Do the job right, and don’t give that brat Sterry any excuses, or you know where you and your precious lungs will end up.”

A silence followed the threat, and Luffy, below her, shifted uncomfortably as the two men came closer to their position. Her skin began to itch with nerves when she felt Ace’s hand pulling her back. Luffy and Nami, sitting behind the tree trunk where Ace had hidden them, watched their protector curiously. The boy didn’t even glance at them, his fists clenched as he studied the two large men towering over them.

“Do you really think that weakling will achieve anything? All of this seems like a waste of time to me.”

The short man let out a sharp laugh, so close that Nami felt the fluctuations of his voice in her bones.

“Would you rather be a nobody in the Goa Kingdom for the rest of your life, Fede? I'd rather do the dirty work now and live the rest in comfort than wait for the Celestial Dragons to get bored and come to kill me.”

The man with the handkerchief, Fede, snorted, and for the first time, Nami felt he wasn’t as dumb as the other man made him seem.

“It’s no use being a noble in Goa when Mariejoise exists. If they want to kill us, they will—don’t you remember the former heir?”

The conversation drifted off with the sound of the two men’s voices, but the tension didn’t leave Nami’s body. She was alert to how stiff Ace had become after the strange chat.

“They scared away the beetles,” Luffy whimpered once the intruders' voices faded, leaving them alone again.

Nami looked at him reproachfully.

“What do those bugs matter when you're in danger?”

The boy watched her, his brows almost meeting in a scowl, upset by her response.

“Geez, Nami, you're just like Ace. You’ll definitely get along. Always with paying attention and stuff.”

“I don’t know, Luffy, maybe…”

Ace, who had been silent, absorbed in his thoughts, interrupted the argument with a look that set off alarm bells in Nami’s head. Alerted by the danger of his narrowed eyes, clenched jaw, and tense shoulders. He saw her watchful, hesitant gaze and consciously relaxed his body to avoid confronting her fear. Despite herself, Nami had to admit the teenager was good at reading her and adjusting to her attitude. It was the second time that day he had made her rethink her stance, and the fact that it was so easy to combat the distrust she had honed over years of living with the enemy made her feel weak, exposed to the elements.

“I’m going out for a while,” Ace declared before she could finish her thoughts and the sensation caused by that look capable of unraveling her survival instincts, “I trust you’ll be able to look after each other, right, Luffy?”

The boy didn’t hesitate to nod, with a finger in his nose and his eyes fixed on what Nami suspected was another beetle on the ground. The metal tube with the cartography materials jingled on his back.

“Of course.”

She straightened her back and looked at Ace with a defiant glint in her eyes.

“I can take care of myself just fine.”

He smiled, and the freckles danced under his eyes.

“I know, but my brother can’t.”

To corroborate that statement, Luffy’s excited shout startled them a few meters to their left.

“Nami, this beetle is as orange as you!” a laugh interrupted him before he turned toward them, showing them a bug the size of his hand with a perfect horn ready to fight for its freedom, “Maybe you're from the same family.”

The tense atmosphere relaxed with Ace’s laughter and Nami’s blushing cheeks.

For a moment, her gaze traveled between the setting sun, the tall wall separating them from the city, and Luffy’s bright black eyes as he gripped the beetle between his fingers.

She sighed, and even though the days on Dawn Island threatened to become endless, slipping through her fingers as the hours became eternal alongside Luffy’s enthusiasm, a treacherous smile crossed her face. The memory of her meal with the brothers, the feeling of a full stomach, and the sight of dozens of orange beetles crept into her head in the form of a silent promise.

She was sure that the days on the island would stretch on for quite some time. And the worst part was  the very thought of it brought a smile to her face.

When the time for goodbyes came, she would cry, but for a few seconds, she allowed herself the luxury of imagining a future without farewells or long noses.

A world filled with food, games, laughter, and rays of sunshine.

Chapter Text

Bell-mère had always enjoyed telling her daughters bedtime stories. She would lie on the bed, her legs buried between the sheets, her back against the headboard, and her eyes would travel miles away, immersed in the depths of the stories, as if words could navigate as easily as ships. From beneath the covers, Nami had sailed with the Marines to islands full of dangers and adventures, with evil kings and heroes disguised as villains.

Bell-mère had told a thousand and one stories that allowed her daugthers to fly beyond the tangerine trees and hunger.

Once her mother was killed, Nami stopped hearing stories or reading fantasy books. Only maps and coordinates. Numbers, plateaus and coves.

Nami avoided wandering around imagination and dreams. Soaring over cities was only possible by reading maps.

All her life, she blamed her far-off dreams on the Grand Line, not on ordinary citizens of East Blue. That was until Luffy took her to soar above the Kingdom of Goa.

Nami had a theory that drawing maps from rooftops would make the work easier, but the fear of falling and leaving her sister and the village of Cocoyashi behind haunted her.

Luffy made it look easy. He knew the alleys of the city, the squares and the stairs. And most importantly, he knew how to sail through the sky. Instead of sandals, it seemed like he was traveling on clouds. The strides he took across the tiles were fluid and full of life. He played with the idea of touching the sun. For him, there didn't seem to be any danger, only fun. Even though it was clear that of the two, he was the one most likely to hit the ground headfirst—he had almost slipped into the chimneys a couple of times.

She had seen him play on the shore, atop cliffs, a step away from the wide sea. And now she knew he had eaten one of the Devil Fruits, she began to wonder if that boy was capable of feeling fear when he never feels it near the sea. But watching him dance across the rooftops, an eternity away from the ground, she knew terror was foreign to him.

After hours of playing on rooftops and drawing straight lines, Nami, exhausted, asked Luffy for a break. He, with boundless energy, kept coming up with acountless challenges on the tiles—each of them a potential way to die. He agreed, on the condition that they climb to the highest rooftop in the city. Despite her reluctance, Nami eventually agreed, because Ace was right—it was very difficult to get an idea out of Luffy's head.

Luffy's stomach growled as soon as they sat together on the edge of the bell tower, their feet just a step away from walking on the wind. And for the first time in years, her imagination flew.

"The first member of your crew should be a cook," Nami remarked, with the sound of music and laughter from the square floating up to their careless ears.

Luffy laughed, thrilled by the idea.

"Or a musician, or a swordsman, or a sniper, or…"

"A doctor would be best. You live a step closer to death than anyone else. You love taking risks too much."

"But it's so much fun!"

She glanced at him, trying to figure out what was behind all that energy.

"What is? The danger?"

Luffy gave her that expression he was getting better at, one that made her realize how odd her questions were, even if they were the most mundane in the universe.

"Adventure, Nami. There are no adventures without risks!"

Bell-mère's stories invaded Nami's mind, seeking out the dangers. Hadn't stealing food from giants to feed hungry towns been dangerous? Hadn't brave Oden's fight against the tyrant dragon been life and death?

Maybe Luffy had a better eye for understanding adventures. Maybe being a dreamer had more advantages than she could see.

From the highest rooftop in the city of Goa, her mother's laughter filled Nami's mind, as if mocking her daughter's wounded pride as she became aware of how small and confined her thinking was, trapped under Arlong's claws.

"Your dream would be nice, if it weren't for the pirates. That idea of setting sail and never looking back sounds good. No burdens, no chains. Just sailing the sea, like seagulls, flying."

"Or like beetles."

She laughed at the comparison, so typical of Luffy and so strange. Maybe one day she would also see the beauty in those bugs.

"It would be wonderful to have their shells. They're protected from everything with armor."

He looked at her, with his hair tousled by the wind and his hat flapping behind his back. The sun danced with the soft strands of his black hair, as if embracing it.

"Armor doesn't protect you from the world, Nami. They fight a lot. That's what the horns are for. I told you they're really cool. And besides, they fly with suuuuuper thin wings, and even though they're scared, they still fly. You're still a caterpillar," he declared, puffing out his chest and raising his chin.

She sighed.

"They're called worms."

"And what's the difference between worms and caterpillars?"

"The same as between horns and noses."

Luffy's face lit up, proud that Nami was talking about horns.

"You'll see, when you're a big, strong orange beetle, you'll be the best navigator in the world. Everyone will know the name of the Pirate King's navigator."

Nami shook her head, annoyed.

"I'll be the best navigator, but I'm not going to be a pirate, Luffy. You'll have to find another job if you want me to work on your ship. And a lot of money, because I charge high for my services," she added at the end. Her financial ethics always came first.

"Naaaaamiiiii!"

She ignored his complaints, stood up, and brushed off her skirt with a flick of her hand.

"Come on, I'm hungry too, and I need to heat up the food for dinner."

Luffy forgot the argument, his eyes hungry and his mouth wide open.

"What's for dinner?!"

Nami eyed the boy suspiciously.

"I don't know what you're going to eat, Luffy. I'm having lentils."

He frowned but nodded thoughtfully.

"Well, Ace must have hunted something, so don't worry. Lentils with meat are tasty."

"I'm not eating with you. I have my own food and my own place to sleep."

"Don't you want to have a sleepover? You're so boring, Nami. Come sleep at our place."

"No, I already told you…"

The birds took flight seconds before the ground shook beneath their feet. The tiles rattled as they clashed against each other, and suddenly, the wall of the building in front of the bell tower, an immense golden and white palace, exploded.

The explosion sent plaster and stone flying in all directions, and the tremor heightened the sense of danger.

Nami tried to regain her balance, and when she looked ahead, toward the edge of the roof, she saw Luffy was trying to do the same. The difference was that a piece of plaster struck beneath the boy's sandals, and his heel slipped, searching for support that ended up being air.

When her mother died, Nami felt as if the bullet's path to her head had taken an eternity. The light in her eyes took years to fade. The corners of her mouth took eons to return to their place. Her body fought against gravity for centuries before finally hitting the ground.

When Luffy slipped and fell into the void, time stretched again. His knee bent at an odd, too-elastic angle. His annoyance turned to surprise, and his mouth opened, unable to process the fall. The tiles flew before his body did.

The difference between her mother's death and Luffy's fall was the lack of movement.

When they pulled the trigger, Nami turned to stone. But before the first tile touched the edge, her arm had shot out to grab her friend's red vest.

Bell-mère left alone, but Luffy dragged Nami with him as soon as her fingers latched onto his clothing.

"Na..." Luffy's voice was drowned out by the loud sound of the explosion.

The moment Nami's fingers intertwined with the red threads of his vest, time returned to its course, and the void swallowed them both.

Nami's thighs, ribs, and chin crashed into the tiles as Luffy continued falling. For a moment, she remembered that just minutes ago, her body had still been aching from Arlong's beating, and yet she felt no pain when she hit the ground. Adrenaline had already wrapped around her.

Both of them screamed as Luffy dangled from the roof, held up only by his friend's thin arms. Despite the Devil Fruit, the fall would have been fatal.

The tiles slid under Nami's body, and fear screamed for her as she found half her body hanging off.

Their eyes met amid the terror, and Luffy quickly stretched his arms to grab onto the weathervane of the bell tower, pulling both of them up as his rubber limbs snapped back.

As soon as she felt solid ground beneath her feet, Nami vomited what little she'd eaten all day, trembling and sweaty, with adrenaline still buzzing under her skin.

Luffy laughed next to her, panting. She gave him a look that promised a slow and painful death.

"Now you have to come eat with us."

Nami wanted to say something, but a second explosion rocked the city, and her desire to speak evaporated with it.

She didn't know what was wrong with this island, but she cursed the moment she thought it would be a quiet and simple place to map.

Chapter Text

When she met someone, Nami used to study their weaknesses while hiding her own. It was something that came to her instinctively, just like walking, eating, or breathing. When shaking hands, she studied the nails. When speaking, she glanced at the marks on their skin. She observed the small gestures, the nicks in their clothing, anything that would tell her where she could pour salt so it would reach the wound.

When Arlong and his group invaded the Conomi archipelago, she devoted herself entirely to finding the weaknesses of the fish-men.

They struggled to stay out of water. Their bodies, light in the sea, became heavy on land. Certain comments hurt them. Danger arose whenever someone mentioned the differences between fish-men and humans. And they had been slaves.

The first time she noticed the iron brand on Kurobi’s wrists, she thought she had misinterpreted something due to exhaustion. One of Hachi's tentacles twisted oddly around a piercing mark, though it could easily have been from an injury sustained in childhood. The pattern of long, thin, healed wounds on Chew’s back might also have been the result of a tough childhood. The gold chains Arlong wore on his wrists weren’t just for show—they concealed skin eroded by iron.

These were all battle scars from a time before her. Piracy and plundering always came with a price. Nami had scars from her travels, too.

Yet, she could never mistake one of those scars from her days at sea and thieving with the ones Arlong had inflicted on her. The scars left by a life of servitude were easily recognizable, and Arlong and his crew bore them on their bodies.

Arlong’s weakness was the same as hers: slavery.

It took her months to process the idea. The thought of a slave enslaving others made her sick because it meant that one day she might become like the one who had hurt her so much. Nami couldn’t bear the idea, but maybe it was her destiny. That’s why she constantly watched her own behavior, allowing only greed to nest within her.

When Luffy almost fell into the void and she reached out to grab him, she didn’t think about it, but on the way home, between rooftops and streets full of people and marines running about, she judged herself against the darkness in her mind and the chaos outside.

Luffy led her through the streets, looking for an easy way out of the wall, but the marines and the uncertainty about what had happened in the palace fueled the collective madness. Rumors of dead kings and melted gold spread, but for now, they were just that—rumors.

The commotion allowed her to think as she let herself be carried along by the crowd behind Luffy.

Her first thought was that she had saved him to take advantage of him. After all, that’s what she always intended. No one ever scrutinized saviors. But Luffy didn’t distrust her, and neither did Ace. The only one who had distanced herself was Nami, so that theory was ruled out.

A man bumped into her, his elbow jabbing into one of her sore ribs. Nami quickened her pace.

Maybe it had just been instinct. Instinct often won battles in the midst of desperation. But when her mother died, she hadn’t intervened. When Carina betrayed her, she hadn’t even been able to react. It hadn’t been instinct.

A woman stepped on her foot with a heel, and Nami let out a pained growl. Luffy turned to look at her, and after a few seconds of thought, stretched out his arm like a rope and wrapped it around her waist.

“That way we won’t get lost,” he said with a smile.

Luffy’s bright, promising teeth made her dizzy, with the answer to her question right on the tip of her tongue.

He, without even knowing it, had found her weakness.

She, who lived behind a wall, who slept in fear, always with one eye open, who distrusted the sweetest look, had let her guard down. Luffy had offered her his hand, and without realizing it, she had lowered the defenses she had proudly carried like a banner.

Love and affection were Nami’s weak points, and she should have known that the moment she saw him rummaging through her things.

It wasn't just that she loved or began to love that boy with childish smiles and loud games. Yes, she had grown attached to him so intensely and quickly that it scared her. It had been so long since she tied her love to Cocoyashi that it was amazing to feel it there, surrounding this self-proclaimed friend who played with the sun and stretched like rubber. She had loved her mother too, and yet she hadn’t been able to break free of her paralysis. But for the first time, after years of imprisonment, pain, and tears, someone had offered her a hand, and she had seen a promise. A promise filled with journeys, maps, laughter and games, fights and arguments, shared meals, and unearthed dreams. Luffy had offered her hope, and after four years of nightmares, she had glimpsed light in the darkness.

The hope that came from this affection, this dangerous trust, was her greatest weakness. Nami and Arlong both knew that very well. That’s why she had spent the first two years trapped, at the mercy of beatings, humiliation, and memories.

Luffy’s embrace as they ran through the streets gave her both security and fear. Fear because talking about dreams and possibilities always broke her heart.

As they ran farther and farther from the city, Nami sensed omens of death and terror. If the whispers were true, things would get complicated again in her mission. The thought terrified her, especially now that she had seen herself weak and defenseless in the arms of two strangers she would soon have to leave behind.

Despite her unease and foggy thoughts, as they neared Luffy and Ace’s home, calm began to settle in. Calm was a virtue, and although Nami wasn’t great at maintaining it, she often worked on it.

From the wooden structure a few meters from Ace and Luffy’s treehouse, loud music and noise floated in, though she could barely hear it as a faint murmur. The fact that this building served as a tavern for some unknown group of people made Nami uneasy, and she studied the orange light critically. She didn’t realize she had stopped, lost in her thoughts, until Luffy touched her bruised cheek with a finger, curious like a child.

She jumped, startled, and when she turned to confront the annoyance, Luffy’s eyes were just centimeters away. His deep breaths tickled her. Her anger dissolved under the curve of those childish eyelashes turned into knives.

“Does it hurt?”

Nami opened her mouth to answer, and he lowered his gaze to the side of her jaw, the side she still couldn’t use to chew.

She considered denying it outright, getting offended by the question, because Luffy had seen the weakness she had tried to hide, but the day was giving way to night, and in the darkness of moonless nights, she usually lay in silence with her sister before confessing what she didn’t dare speak of under the sun’s heat.

“A little. The waves were too rough that day. The blow was hard.”

Her friend tilted his head to observe more closely. The muffled music and the drunken voices in the background would have made her nervous if she weren’t in company, and with company, fears diminished.

“When we first met, you were limping, and earlier, when I hugged you or when we jumped between rooftops, you made that face, the same one you just made when I touched your cheek. You have more injuries, don’t you?”

She moved away, shaking her head before she could even form words.

“I have to leave because…”

“Ace said it’d be better if I didn’t ask. That maybe you’d want to keep your distance. He didn’t like it when I asked questions either.”

The confession stopped her in her tracks. Paralyzed by a thought that had already turned into a storm.

“Did Ace get hit?”

Luffy’s eyes, dark and round, always seeming to drift aimlessly through the world, met Nami’s again, and the hairs on her neck stood on end.

“Have you been hit?”

The question stirred agony and nerves. Her heart raced, and anxiety reduced her to a whirlwind of confusing thoughts, mingling fear, the urge to flee, and vague excuses.

Before she could scream, run, or touch the two ribs that had betrayed her, the music grew louder as the tavern door opened and closed again. Nami, nerves on edge, turned her head impulsively toward whoever had escaped the noisy crowd.

Relief washed over her as soon as she recognized Ace’s odd hat and the smile that had begun to form on his face when he saw them.

“I heard about the terrorist attack. I was about to go look for you if you hadn’t returned soon. Thanks Nami, for protecting my idiot brother. If I’d left him alone, they’d have arrested him by now for causing a scene…” The teenager stopped when he noticed the tension in the air, so unlike Luffy.

“Did something happen?”

Automatically, Nami forced a wide smile, slipping back into her lies and deception. Survival mode.

“No, nothing. I was just about to leave—it’s time for dinner, and I have to heat up the lentils.”

He raised an eyebrow and glanced at his brother, confused, but Luffy was already back to his usual carefree, cheerful self.

"I've told Nami to stay for dinner. With meat, her lentils will surely taste better."

She forced a laugh.

"If you want me to stay and eat, you'll have to pay extra, Luffy. My time is worth gold."

She hid the sadness she felt about that farewell disguised as a lie while she packed her bag. Once she left, she wouldn’t come back.

She couldn’t come back.

She had to leave. Now or never. Now.

Luffy was dangerous. Information could harm her.

The next day, she would take a detour to enter the city one last time, sketch whatever she could, and then leave. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t finish the map. She would make another island, a whole archipelago if that would keep Arlong at peace. She would look for books on Dawn Island and steer the fishmen’s crew away from there. Away from a boring, charm-less island. Away from the danger that Chew or Hachi might spill something over drinks when they reviewed the drawn streets of Windmill Village.

Ideas were starting to take shape when Ace tried to intervene, but Luffy spoke first.

"How much?"

The flow of her thoughts was abruptly interrupted by the question.

"How much what?" she murmured.

"How much money do you want to stay for dinner? We don't have much, so if you want, you can have my bed or Ace’s as payment."

Nami, still caught off guard, stammered as she spoke.

"What?"

"Yeah, well, I bet you'd like it better than sleeping in the tree. That should count as payment, and my brother’s food will taste delicious with the lentils, right, Ace?"

The teenager, confused by the question, the atmosphere, and how the conversation was unfolding, nodded with uncertainty.

"Uh, yeah?"

She lowered her head, hesitating.

"What do you want?"

He smiled.

"For you to stay for dinner and spend the night. You could live with us."

Silence took on a life of its own, filled with music, diluted tension, and silly suggestions.

"Luffy, you know very well that at some point, I'm going to leave. You knew it from the beginning. I already have a place I need to return to."

The boy seemed to shrink in on himself, like soft, melting rubber.

"Stay" he muttered.

"I can’t, Luffy. Do you even listen when I talk?"

"I want you to stay."

"I’m not…"

Ace took a couple of steps forward, throwing an arm over each of their shoulders. Once again, as if it were his duty to mediate all of their arguments.

"Well, for now, I think it’s time for dinner. Aren’t you guys hungry?"

Luffy let out a muffled yelp.

"Ace, don’t pinch me, that hurts!" Despite his request, the boy complained even more loudly when his brother poked him again.

"Meat and lentils " Ace commented with a huge grin and a wink that, to Nami, seemed poorly rehearsed. "And a little rice Dadan gave me. We're going to lick our fingers clean."

She intended to refuse, to back out and run away, because the plan felt one step away from disaster, but she was a good liar. She could twist things so that the next time Luffy asked about the bruises, everything would seem like a misunderstanding. And honestly, she was hungry, tired, and wanted to eat meat and rice instead of reheated lentils by the fire for the fourth night in a row.

The idea of leaving grew heavier, and she felt lighter with each passing day. It was time to go. The thought made her heart tremble.

Two days. She’d give herself two more days, prepare everything, enjoy her time with two people who, despite the bond, were still strangers, and then she’d leave. She’d come up with some excuse for Arlong when the time came.

She couldn’t take it anymore. Either she escaped now, or she would die of heartbreak when the ship set sail, leaving betrayal and friends behind on shore.

Chapter Text

For Nami, knowing that she only had one more day with Luffy and Ace made her anxious during dinner. She chewed the lentils reluctantly, with her mouth full and her heart broken. She continued like that, on the verge of a breakdown, until it was time to sleep.

As her thoughts twisted and the wooden ceiling seemed to get closer, Ace’s snore from the bed next to her snapped her out of her nightmares and made her roll over to look at him.

On the small, old mattress, the teenager had taken up most of the bed while Luffy hugged him like an octopus clinging to its prey. The image made her smile despite her anxiety. Even in their sleeping positions, Nami could read traces of warmth, love, and the freedom she longed for. A world without worries, filled only with joy and beautiful dreams.

A solitary tear escaped, frustrated with herself for those feelings that wore her down, wishing she could reach out and touch a better life with the tips of her fingers.

In silence and solitude, she allowed herself to cry for a while to let out her sorrow. When she finished, her reddened cheeks pressed against the damp mattress gave her chills, and the world felt lighter.

Luffy murmured something as he tightened his embrace on his brother. Nami smiled broadly, without holding back, without thinking—for what felt like the first time in her life—about the consequences of a smile.

The hours passed as she watched the brothers toss and turn on the mattress, overwhelmed by the heat but always together, and dawn came earlier than expected with the promise of one last day. A last day that Nami planned to take advantage of until the very last minute. Because she was determined not to regret her departure when she packed her bags in the early hours. If the mission was already a lost cause, she had to make the most of those final hours.

As the sun began to rise over the horizon, Nami stretched and finally got up, searching for a change of clothes. The night before, she hadn’t minded changing in one of the dark corners, to sleep in a more comfortable t-shirt, but she knew the daylight would be a problem.

The thought gave her chills, so quick like as snake, she slipped out of Luffy’s borrowed bed and went to a corner of that house without privacy to put on her favorite shirt—the white one with blue stripes—which hid everything she needed to remain secret. The ink under the cold morning air seemed to twist, but it was just her imagination, she reminded herself as she pulled the hem of the shirt down.

While the brothers continued to sleep, Nami unfolded the maps she carried, half-drawn, and concluded that with two or three books, she might be able to try completing them. The problem would be Arlong. Another trip with empty hands. She shuddered at the thought and her teeth clenched. Just the idea of spending another month living on legumes made her stomach ache. She was determined to eat until her belly couldn’t hold a crumb more. Arlong wasn’t one to lash out often, but greed breaks the sack, and Nami hadn’t been productive in far too long.

“What’s for breakfast?” asked Luffy, still half-asleep.

The boy rested his chin on her head to use it as a support. Luffy’s hands moved over the papers, searching for drawings of mermaids on city maps.

“You could draw stories, dragons, clowns, pirates…”

Nami remembered the image of her mother sketched in ink on torn paper and brushed his hands aside to return the maps to their place.

“I don’t draw, I just map.”

“Well, you would do it very well. You could also be the artist in my crew.”

She snorted, but instead of outright refusal, she remembered she had promised to live this last day immersed in dreams and let herself be carried away by the flow of his words.

“I’m sure you’ll find someone who draws better than I do. Maybe the cook, the sniper, or the doctor can draw dragons. I can only reproduce what I see.”

Luffy laughed as he moved away to look for breakfast in the pantry.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find dragons for you to draw.”

Ace, now stretching as he sat on the bed, laughed. His voice came out hoarse when he spoke.

“By the time you find them, I’ll have already drawn them three times.”

“You can’t even draw!”

The indignation in Luffy’s voice was palpable, and Ace increased it as soon as he reached over his head with an arm and took the bag full of buns from the cupboard.

“I’ll send you one as a keepsake, Luffy, so you can hang it on your ship.”

“And I’ll send you three of Nami’s so you can hang them on yours.”

The girl snatched the bag of sweets from Ace in a quick move and stuffed an entire bun into her mouth. Both boys looked at her with open mouths as she chewed calmly and swallowed.

“Why would you send each other drawings? Aren’t you going on the same ship?”

They gave each other a look full of pride look before launching into stories of honor, brotherhood, and dreams that filled Nami’s breakfast with laughter and sugar. It had been so long since she had tasted anything sweet that the girl nearly cried several times throughout the story.

The amusing, slightly extravagant story left her with more questions than answers. Because they often interrupted each other with excitement and assumed she knew about certain aspects of their lives she was completely unaware of.

“But weren’t you just two? Who is Sabo? What’s the drinks oath? Which one of you has money for two ships? Wouldn’t it be better to sail under the same flag?”

The mood changed so quickly she barely had time to wonder why. The shadows grew as the two brothers looked at each other. Luffy opened his mouth but then closed it again. Ace, on the other hand, got up and turned away while brushing off his pants.

“Sabo was our brother. He died a few years ago when he set out to sea,” Luffy explained, head down and shoulders slumped.

“He didn’t die. He was killed.” Ace’s voice was so cold it froze Nami to the bone. “He was killed by a Celestial Dragon because of his own family. And then they just replaced him. As if he never existed.”

The silence fell like a heavy sea of ice between them. Her muscles screamed at her to break the stillness, but she remained completely frozen, trapped in a past that wasn’t hers but smelled like hers.

“Ace, it’s not…”

She interrupted Luffy faster than she had ever thought possible, being a statue of salt, leaping over herself, and for the first time in a long while, she was the one to offer the hug. Both of them were surprised when she crashed into them, nearly knocking them over. Overwhelmed by her own emotions.

Luffy let out a laugh as he returned the hug, delighted, and Ace squeezed her a little, silently thanking her for a nice gesture, but one that meant a whole world  to her who was dying to share with them.

Nami would liked to talk about her mother, about her experience. To tell them that she still kept a small jar of dirt darkened by blood under a loose floorboard in her house. To ask them if they still remembered their brother’s voice or if they forgot it. How long it had taken them to lose his scent. If their hearts still ached like she saw in Ace’s words and in Luffy’s dark eyes.

Because for the first time she felt that two people who didn't share her past would understand her and feeling accompanied gave her immense peace.

She didn’t hold back the hug because, for one day, she allowed herself to feel, but she didn't mention Bell-mère because freedom, for her, always had a measure.

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

When they arrived at the treehouse, Nami could barely see through her swollen eyelids. Between her blurred vision and the ringing in her ears, she felt trapped within herself.

Instead of climbing the narrow ladder, Luffy guided her toward the large wooden gate, the same one that had echoed with music during the last day of the storm.

Lightning split the sky as the boy knocked on the door.

Luffy's hand, held firmly around her, tightened his grip as she was surprised by another sob.

The door opened as the first drops of rain hit the ground.

A massive woman with fiery orange hair, almost the same shade as Nami's, looked them up and down. Her towering frame filled the doorway, casting a long shadow.

"What's this mess? Who's the girl? And where's Ace?"

Luffy pulled Nami closer to his side. Despite the usual childish attitude, his face did not show even a hint of the sweet smile that usually appeared on the boy's face.

"Dadan, we need to call Grandpa. Ace has been arrested."

The color drained from the big woman's face.

"What? Arrested? Ace? Why?"

"I don't know. Something about a dead king." Luffy muttered, shaking his head. The sky thundered again, and he stepped forward, pulling Nami with him. "We need to come in, Dadan. Nami's tired, and I'm starving."

Without waiting for permission, Luffy moved past the stunned woman, leading Nami through a room filled with rough-looking men. He gently sat her in a chair on the quiet corner.

She shivered, unable to say a single word, but with fear like a blanket on her shoulders. The strangers gave her chills and the chair Luffy sat her in was so high her legs were dangling. Nami felt tiny and the thought made her nauseous.

"Don't worry, Nami." Luffy said with a childlike certainty. "They're mountain bandits, but they'd never hurt you. Dadan's rough, but she's good, just like you. And I'm here. I'm not leaving."

She nodded, tears cold on her cheeks and throat. She wanted to respond, to say something, but her tongue felt frozen, and no words came.

Something inside her was wrong—terribly wrong—but she couldn't even pinpoint where it hurt.

The large orange-haired woman approached them, her heavy steps rattling the floorboards. Her stern expression made Nami shrink further, her eyes fixed on the ground, hands shaking.

"Do you want something to eat, girl?"

Nami shook her head vigorously, gripping Luffy's hand like a lifeline.

Luffy was unable to understand much beyond the types of beetles, but he leaned closer to her. He pproached Nami with incomprehension marked in the steps. His eyes were full of indecision, but he was so close she didn't care that he didn't know what to do. The simple fact that he didn’t let go of her hand warmed her heart. Stunned by feelings so intense and terrifying she couldn't name them, she wrapped her arms around the boy in a trembling embrace and hid the face and tears in her friend's neck.

Without hesitation, Luffy returned the hug. Though he was an emocional brick with words, he loved to talk through rubs and touches —an expert speaker in the language of the hands.

"What's the meaning of all this, Luffy?" Dadan demanded, her voice sharp.

Nami listened the conversation as if she were witnessing the scene through a fish tank.

"I don't know," Luffy admitted. "When the marines arrested Ace, they threw us to the ground, and Nami... she's been like this ever since. She doesn't answer me. It's like she's locked in a different room."

The sentence wasn't meant to cut, but Nami's mind was sharp and the word "locked" rattled in her head like the sound of the shackles.

The memory of a sawed-off nose and the escape plans she had made for that very night swayed behind the voices in the background and her heart raced. She needed to left. But the farewell already ached—deep in her bones, in her soul, in the frayed edges she called her heart.

The mere thought made her shiver.

"Poor girl's shaking like a newborn chick." One of the big men remarked.

"They beat the hell out of her, it's normal that she's shaking." said another.

"If she's like this, imagine Ace, he always barks louder than a dog"

"The marines will rough him up good."

"Sure."

"I bet a giant's boot that..."

The bandits' idle chatter, oddly casual in its tone, started pulling Nami out of her trance. As she relax she became aware of Luffy's hand rubbing slow, in rhythmic circles on her back, at the sweet speed of a lullaby.

"Nami," Luffy whispered in a low voice, searching for the secret of whispers.

She nodded, still hidden in the corner of the hug that offered her protection.

"Do you want to go home?" he asked. "Dadan can get you something to eat, and you can wait there while we call Grandpa. Then, if you want, I'll let you know when we head to the city to fight the guards. I bet you'd throw a strong punch. Or you can draw maps while we handle the hitting."

Her heart twisted. In the treehouse, alone, with Luffy busy with the idea of saving his brother, would be the perfect time to gather her things and run away—to flee with the storm at her back and the sea ahead.

The idea made her cartwheel between sawed off noses, handcuffs and rooms with bars on the windows. And the only coherent statement was born among the noise and lights was she couldn’t go with the escape plan. No, she could never abandon Luffy and Ace like that, because if something went wrong Nami wouldn't be able to forgive herself. And her quota of guilt had reached the limit, she was unable to look her mother in the eyes when she appeared in her dreams. So she couldn’t live with the rejection of the few people she had been able to consider friends.

The thought of leaving Luffy and Ace made her heart ache more than the fear of staying.

The image of the people of Cocoyashi was shouting in her ear and pulling on her neck, so she tried to silence it by clenching the hand on a fist on his friend's vest.

"No." she said, her voice firm despite her trembling body. "No, I'm not leaving. We'll get Ace out together. Okay?"

The sudden determination in her voice surprised the enormous woman watching them, who took a step back, with Nami's gaze fixed on her face.

Luffy's grin lit up the room and dazzled her

"You're the best of the best, Nami! I promise I'll leave the second-strongest guard so you could beat him up."

She started to laugh, although she recoiled when she saw the confidence in the boy's gaze. Nami wiped her tears and lightly smacked his shoulder with the usual disapproval finally settling in.

"We're not going to free him by punching, idiot. We're doing this my way."

Dadan interrupted Luffy's protest with a slap to the back of his head.

"Let the girl speak, you brute. She's got better ideas than you."

Nami, proudly, straightened her shoulders and smiled, even with her red nose and swollen eyes, still embrace the confidence that characterized her.

"We'll free him without them noticing. Like thieves."

The bandits exchanged uneasy looks, muttering among themselves under the weight of the idea.

"The old dog not gonna like this" one grumbled.

Luffy, who hadn’t stopped watching Nami with confusion and an endless number of retorts about to explode, laughed, pleased. As if hearing those words were a challenge impossible to refuse.

"Then let's break into the jail!"

She lowered the brim of his hat to cover his dust-filled thoughts.

"No, first we need a map," Nami corrected. "And a plan."

Dadan chuckled, clutching her belly. "If we're relying on this idiot's brain, we'll need food. Lots of it. Cause it's going to be long."

Nami observed the bandit with joking comments and was excited to see the hint in her mother's eyes.

"Thank you, ma'am." She fanned her words with the hand.

"If you get the boy out before the dog shows up, I might even add some meat in your rice, skinny girl." Dadan replied.

The smell of cooking filled the room, and made the girl's mouth water, Luffy raised his hat and grumbled something about meat and injustices.

Sitting between ideas, chatter and rice with meat, with Luffy at her side covered in breadcrumbs up to his hat, Nami felt her toes getting warm, despite the anxiety of the last few days, despite the fear the simple memory of a flowery shirt and a town of upside-down houses gave her, despite everything.

After a life of refuge on the run, she was surprised by the warmth of those who chose to stay.

Chapter Text

That night, between lightning, thunder, threats and fear, when Nami and Luffy went to sleep they found a silent house and a presence that writhed in the shadows and never took shape. The walls and things thrown here and there spoke of Ace in an overwhelming way. His absence screamed silently.

As Nami lay down on the mattress in the dark and stared at the ceiling, even though sleep was clouding her thoughts, she realized that it would be impossible for her to sleep that night. She tried to encapsulate the thought, to enclose it in the concrete memory of the types of beetles she knew so far, in the ways of reaching into a pocket and twisting his fingers to take out a wallet without the victims realizing it, in the shudder that she felt on the back when the pressure began to drop in the atmosphere and it spoke to her about storms.

Luffy's fingers on her arm surprised her. As she narrowed the gaze in his direction she saw a muffled whisper in the way the boy's mouth moved.

“What?” Nami asked out loud. She gestured over her ear so he would understand. “Can you speak louder? I don't hear whispers unless you whisper them in my ear.”

Luffy seemed to gauge his response for a few seconds before sitting up and crawled across the mattress to take a place next to her. Without a shadow of doubt or shame, he brought his mouth closer to her and his breath warmed the back of her neck, as if he were a child with a secret.

Nami didn't even move, surprised by how much the boy's closeness calmed her, when she never was a fan of unnecessary touching.

“Do you think Ace will feel lonely locked up?” Her chest tingled, touched by a question so innocent and at the same time so close to those she did not want to answer about herself.

She thought about it a couple of times before answering. Luffy stretched out excitedly as he brought his ear closer to her and Nami held back the smile that was trying to form on her mouth, turned around and spoke with her lips a couple of centimeters from her friend's lobe. She and Noriko played when they were young to tell secrets without their mother finding out, a dangerous game considering how loudly her sister had to whisper for her to hear it.

“Probably, but he will also think about you, and about today, about how much fun we had throwing seaweed and about the rice with meat that he will eat as soon as he comes out. When you are locked up there is more space for thoughts, goods and bad, you know?”

She returned to her position and Luffy quickly climbed to her ear to take the place she left. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him with the eyebrows clenched, his thought held between them.

“Have you ever been in jail, Nami?”

The idea made her stomach turn, but she shook the head quickly and squirmed again, searching for his friend's ear.

“No and I hope I never will be. But they punished me when I don't do what I should. Sometimes is for good. If not, I forget why I must do it. When I'm alone and can't do anything, I refocus. Lately I think it would be good to be punished again. I think I'm starting to forget what I really have to do.”

She saw Luffy stir, with the desire to reply written on the profile of his face, so she went ahead of him before he raised his voice more than necessary in the middle of the night.

“Don't anyone punish you?”

He denied so quickly, his hair tickled Nami's nose as she turned to allow him to speak.

“Never. When my grandfather gets angry he only takes me to train.”

She wrinkled her nose in question and Luffy continued with the explanation.

“You know, he takes me to the forest and releases me to the animals, or throws me off cliffs or...”

She narrowed her eyes to look at him and her eyes, just a few centimeters away, sparkled with disbelief written in them.

“Those are punishments, Luffy!”

The silence was broken for a few seconds before he put a hand to his mouth and motioned with a finger for her to turn her head again so he could speak into her ear.

Nami narrowed the eyes one step away from the anger and indignation written in the movement.

“It helps me and Ace to make us stronger. Grandpa probably wouldn't do it to you without you being with us. Or he would even train you with other types of activities. I bet he'd make you recite the shape of the island from memory or something. Their workouts always work, even if you end up hating them later.”

Before he continued with the sentence, Nami turned his face with her hands and put the mouth on his ear, wanting more to bite it off than to continue whispering. That Luffy was not able to relate the violence implicit in his training with that of her punishment, drove her crazy.

“Leaving you alone in the forest only serves as attempted murder, Luffy. Our punishments are the same.”

He, unable to move the head with the force Nami was exerting to keep him in place, spoke forward with the gaze fixed on his friend.

“At least my training make me stronger. Leaving you locked up for what's the point?”

She let go of his cheeks as if they were burning and turned the head to the ceiling again, hurt by the question.

“I already told you; it helps me think.”

“That doesn't make you stronger.”

“Just because you don't use your head to think doesn't mean that it doesn't help people.”

Silence surrounded them for a while, full of darkness and apathy, until Luffy squinted his head again to whisper some words in her ear in which the secret was implicit.

“They hit you, Nami. What is that for?”

She clenched her fists, one word away from the reply, with the heart in the throat and the open secret she kept spilled between the two of them. But she stopped when the memory of the chains and loose teeth came back into the memory.

How dare she even defend him? What he did to her. What he did to others. Could she really understand all the suffering Arlong caused? The beatings he gave her? Was she willing to defend that out of pride? If she defended what he did to her, perhaps she was accepting that it was okay for him to do everything he did to defend his purposes. And the murder of his mother was implicit in the idea.

The air grew stale in her lungs and the rice and meat threatened to escape. The nausea increased when Nami squeezed her stomach to prevent it from coming out and the ribs told her of a recent beating.

The girl sat up with the hands on her belly, the face green and her breathing altered. Panic clawed at her insides. She couldn't defend him. She didn't have to justify it. If she continued like this every day she would be closer to becoming him.

“Nami, what's wrong? Are you afraid? Hunger?”

The urgency and concern in Luffy's voice brought her back to her senses a little. She remained silent when Ace was arrested was one thing, but she couldn't allow panic episodes like that to continue, fear couldn't and wouldn't take her mind.

Nami counted to twenty while breathing to the rhythm of the numbers that danced in her thoughts.

As she looked her trembly legs, she took a breath, even with the sensation that her sore ribs were hugging her lungs and forced herself to lie down again. Luffy caressed her fingers and she took advantage of the touch to hold his hand tightly and anchor herself to the ground, to the present, to the now with him, in the darkness. In the silence that Ace left that she had to focus on to save him. The thought of punishments, of fish men, and everything that threatened to fall and crush her Nami must to be put aside. Forget them.

"What..." the boy began out loud.

She turned the head and whispered in his ear again, her heart still hysterical in her chest and the hair on the back of her neck standing up.

“Do I look like a monster?” she inquired into that ear of childish words and insidious questions.

She squeezed the boy's hand as she returned the gaze to the ceiling, waiting for his response. It took a couple of seconds for Luffy to react again.

“No, you're my friend, Nami.”

She shook her head and met his gaze fiercely.

“Friends can be monsters too. I'm a monster?”

The teenager frowned so much that darkness swirled in his gaze.

“Of course not.”

She took a breath and closed her eyes.

“I have the feeling that every day I am closer to being one. That one day I will become him.”

Luffy shifted uncomfortably next to her, behind the eyelids she kept clenched. Nami squeezed his hand to keep him there and prevent a streak of fear from pulling him away from her.

“He? The one who hits you or the one who locks you up?”

She gave a giggle full of contained tension and bitter humor. Nami opened the eyes and held the lie on the tip of her tongue. Because in that darkness, locked up on an island of windmills, after a storm and the threat of losing a friend at the hands of the government, she was incapable of telling lies.

She had already thrown her principles overboard by deciding to stay, and considering that Luffy would never be able to leave the island and follow her, tormented by poor guidance, Nami felt her tongue loosen before she spoke.

“There are not two people, Luffy. He is the only one who does the dirty work. Him and sometimes his group.”

This time his friend got so close to her ear that she almost felt like he was biting it.

“Who?”

The weight of the truth buried her and weighed so much that one day she would end up suffocating under it, but she couldn't speak.

“Who?”

Her lips trembled, with the “A” drawn between them, the “R” stuck between her teeth.

“Who?”

Nami squeezed his hand and breathed.

“Arlong. He's name is Arlong.

She said it in a voice so quiet and so tiny that she was barely able to hear herself, but Luffy's fingers twitched in relief.

“Alright.”

The answer surprised her and the boy's expression left her confused. Calmness and determination were drawn on his cheekbones, and sharpened the rounded scar.

“Alright?”

He nodded and Nami realized that the truth had lifted such a weight from her shoulders that she had only room left for sleep while her eyelids began to feel heavy.

“I'm going to beat him up so he doesn't even say your name again.”

She smiled through the haze of sleep under such a ridiculous sentence.

“You won't even be able to find it.”

A yawn blurred the “it.”

“I don't need it, I have a navigator to take me there.”

She shook her head as turned back toward the ceiling, looking for a comfortable position to fall asleep.

“I would never lead you to death, Luffy.”

“I do not want you to do it. Navigators guide their captain wherever they want to go. So dying is my thing and I'm not going to die until I become the pirate king.”

“I would never guide you to your death.”

He squeezed her hand and his laughter echoed in the corners of the dream.

“Don't you see, Nami? You are not a monster. You're just an orange beetle caterpillar.”

“Worm.”

Laughing and hand in hand, Luffy guided her to the world of dreams. No nightmares to torment her, just sand, water, kings and pirates.

Chapter Text

In Goa the navy barracks was located on Canes street, on the corner of the main avenue that led to the palace. At night there was usually a lot of hustle and bustle with drunks and thugs arrested the day before who spent the night in the cells vomiting and complaining. In the morning, if they were lucky, the family would take them; otherwise, they would wait between dizziness and headaches until twelve o’clock to go out onto the street with a fine in hand and a promise to pay within twenty-four hours.

The terrorists had special treatment, of course. The murderer of a king was to be taken to Impel Down, if the administration managed to contact the prison, those things usually had a schedule.

Not at nine, that’s the time for the officials' breakfast. The paperwork began at ten, except on Mondays, when it was training time. Between eleven and twelve, was the Den Den Mushi calls time, if the weather was good and the Den Den Mushi were working correctly of course. Although if they had in mind the international time change, it was too early for Impel Down and by then it was coffee time in the prison.

Ace was arrested on a Sunday so the day for administrative matters was Monday and new recruits had just arrived, schedules were disrupted. It was not every day that a king was killed and those things about interrogations and torture took special times.

Furthermore, the recruits turned out to be incompetent.

They were shown the facilities prior to the cleaning room until they had the bucket and the mop in their hands and that was where the presentations ended until the coffee hour was over and everything was like gold.

The boy spilled the dirty water in just five minutes and the girl asked to go to the bathroom in ten. ‘that’s the future of the country’ thought the marine with the janitor position as he sent them both to the prisoners' latrines to prevent them from wasting the paper in the marine bathroom. If they were going to be kicked out soon they didn't need privileges.

On the stairs the two new recruits looked at each other as they went down.

“That one said that there is no paper in the bathroom in the cells, Nami. If you want, ask him for the upstairs bathroom.”

The girl let out a sigh as she grabbed her partner's hand and put him into the first little room she found. One full of unmade beds and the smell of cigarettes.

“We're not going to pee, Luffy. You'd better stay quiet and follow me, okay? I do the thinking things and you watch. If they ask you something you say ‘yes’ to everything and if there is a fight I allow you to punch once.”

He pouted as he snorted.

“I want to hit more than one.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, two. Now shut up and follow me.”

Before leaving, Luffy twisted his mouth, the words curling between his teeth.

“If it's small, we won't both fit in the bathroom.”

She stepped on his foot already in the hallway, looking for prying eyes in the surrounding area.

“Shhhh.”

As soon as they reached the ground floor, surrounded by bars, eyes turned to them pleadingly and Nami remembered that they were wearing uniforms. As they advanced, in an attempt to find a familiar face, hands came out from behind the bars, in the form of drunken and beggarly supplications. Despite the number of bars, behind none of them did they find Ace's familiar face. In the cells they would find nothing of wanted criminals, it was evident.

"Take me out of here, I promise I'll pay, just let me get home, my family is waiting for me" pleaded a man with small eyes and scabs of dirt on his skin.

Nami shuddered and Luffy hesitantly squeezed her hand.

The first pleading phrase gave way to a dozen misguided requests and hoarse voices.

The bathroom door seemed further and further away while the poor old marine guarding the cells shouted for silence.

“More pay and less complain!”

Nami looked down and almost ran to the door of the tiny bathroom where she forcibly pushed Luffy. Ignoring complaints and tears.

The boy squatted over the dirty toilet lid and a bursting paper with his mouth twisted and the brow furrowed.

“I don't like this place.”

“Yeah, me neither. Have you seen Ace?”

Luffy shook the head vigorously.

“I haven't seen him either. We have to ask the prisoners or the marine. We'd better distract the old man now while the others drink coffee. This way I can review the detainees' entry log.”

His friend squinted his head in question.

“Are the punches starting?”

Nami sighed again.

“Let's clog the toilet, come on.”

Nami looked around in search of material and decided, with her eyes fixed on the dirt and the very small space of the pipe that a pair of socks and a cap would be enough.

Luffy helped her take off the shoes and threw the things into the filthy and dirty water.

It didn't take much more. When she flushed the toilet, the murky water swirled sinisterly in search of a way out and Nami had to pull the boy away from the mess before he got his flip-flops dirty.

When she took Luffy out of the bathroom she did so with cries for help.

“The pipes don't drain! It's overflowing!” Nami shouted as she ran in search of the older man who was resting after the reception to the cells.

The man ran towards the bathroom cursing and spitting, apparently accustomed to that type of spectacle. Nami left Luffy arguing with the man while she surreptitiously leaned behind the table in search of the necessary papers. From the cells, the majority turned their heads, attentive to the scene.

Despite the organization that she would have thought necessary for that place, a worn notebook with alcohol and coffee stains offered her a pile of names with times and numbers. It took her some time to recognize the letters, but as soon as she did, Ace's name, short and concise, along with the inscription of the charge as: magnicide, offered her a small breath.

‘Confidential transfer. Pending Central’ the signature of two men attested to the transfer ‘Irvin’ and ‘Toga’.

Frustration at the very little information offered by the disastrous handwriting of the terrible record made her groan. They need to…

“I know you, girl.”

Nami turned around at the voice that had just interrupted her thoughts. One of the prisoners, a middle-aged man with disheveled clothes, thinning hair, and a split lip, watched her from behind the bars with a hollow, disfigured smile. The girl's back tensed, unable to put a name to that face, but certain that she had seen him on another occasion.

Hopefully he would recognize her from those days making maps around the island.

The shape of a tattoo curling under his shirt told her of another kind of luck.

“You left my crew without a berry a few months ago and then your companions killed my captain and my gang. You are Arlong's leech. The thief cat.”

The background noise, the wild screams, the old man's curses and Luffy's laughter died down for her and the world became silent.

“No, you’re confuse me with another.”

She turned around to avoid confrontation and looked for the nearest exit. The nerves burned, her blood bubbled.

“It's you, yes it is you. I swore I would kill you, those promises always have a face, you know, bitch? I have imagined so many ways to strangle you that I would be disappointed if you didn't die like in my dreams.”

She shook the head again as she slowly backed towards the stairs. Luffy, in the background, had not even looked up from the puddle, as he jumped amused by the guard's screams.

“I don't know who you confused me with, but I'm not that one. So leave me alone.”

“Nami, look! your cap’s floating” Luffy shouted from the other side of the corridor of bars.

The prisoner who stared at her hungry for death from behind the cell, showed his chipped teeth when he heard her name. The girl's head went cold as did her ideas, the fear, which she knew so well and so faithfully accompanied her, hugged her, already with her hands on the exit lintel.

"The supervisor is calling us from above, Luffy, we have to go." The excuse came out patchy and unstable, but her friend didn't hear her as he played around on the fabric that sailed between the cells.

“But look at this, it's...”

“Luffy !” The shout was so severe that half of the prisoners watched her, fear gave her the courage to stay in her place, with the fingers frozen and blood on her feet, one step away from running away.

She would have already fled if it hadn't been for Luffy, who this time, watched her without a trace of amusement, alarmed by the tone and urgency.

“Let's go.”

She barely had time to explain herself when the man who was terrorizing her behind bars started screaming.

“A fucking cat has sneaked into your cells!”

Luffy watched him, with confusion marked on his face and Nami's gaze fixed on the forehead.

“Run!”

The guard didn't even have time to think about what was happening. Luffy jumped on the puddle, crushing the wet fabric of Nami's cap and reached her in two strides.

“She escapes! The thief cat runs away!”

The screams pursued her as she took the steps two at a time. When she reached the floor she didn't stop, Nami grabbed Luffy by the wrist and led him straight to the stairs. The guard's deep, grave voice chased after them.

"I think they're following us." Luffy shouted, as he took the lead in the race, pulling Nami up. "We have to get out now!"

“And Ace, Luffy? We have to go after him.” Desperation ran through her bones as the Marines who entered through the front door after breakfast watched the scene paralyzed by surprise.

“He told me to protect you! He'll be angry if we get caught.”

She shook the head, her ribs aching and half gasping after such a sudden run.

“They’re going to send him to prison, Luffy, if they take him to Impel Down there will be no way to save him. We have to get him out now! He has to be in this building!”

“The thief cat has sneaked into the barracks! Stop her!”

The boy looked over his shoulder and observed her with concentration on the face, before looking at the window that illuminated the stairs.

“We have to get out of here.”

She gasped, breathless as Luffy pushed her to the window.

“Ace…!”

The boy wrapped one of his arms like a piece of gum around his waist and stuck the tongue out at the Marines who were striding up the stairs behind them.

“We'll come back for my brother! And then there will be a fight!”

Nami opened her mouth to shout something, but what little breath she would have recovered, Luffy stole it by running towards the glass. The world exploded around her into shining pieces and she took refuge behind Luffy's raised arm to protect herself from the splinters. The sun dazzled them as she screamed and Nami screamed.

The jump seemed to last an eternity with Luffy's laughter playing in the background, the sun behind them and the ground meters away.

Surrounded by disbelief, the mind gave her a blow of reality. She was dizzy at the idea that everything had gone wrong because of her. Nami was wondering for a while how long it would take to drag Luffy into her misery. Now that she was struggling to get out of the pit, life was stabbing her. It would never have mercy on her?

Chapter Text

If there was one thing Nami hated about her profession, it was stealing at night. The simple act of taking a step into enemy territory with the lights out gave her chills. In the dark it was difficult to make out details and they were the most important thing.

“I wanna goooo, Naamiiiii!” Luffy repeated for the fourth time in a minute after having spent the afternoon arguing about Ace's next release plan.

Dadan snorted from the doorway, looking at the youngest boy who was rolling on the mat. Nami leaned over her backpack to put everything back in order and make sure she had everything she needed to sneak into the barracks.

“The old man will arrive in a couple of days, I don't know why you're going to risk going into that place alone, girl.”

"Nami, let me go with you" Luffy insisted.

Nami bent down to pick up the lockpicks from the floor and put them in the outside pocket of her backpack. In an attempt to ignore her friend and focus her attention on Dadan, she narrowed the gaze at her and wrinkled the forehead.

“Because they are going to send him to Impel Down. Do you know how is that fucking place?”

The woman laughed ironically.

“Let's go together, Nami!”

“Of course I don't know, mountain bandits don't go there, just like sneak thieves.”

She grunted, hurt by the accusation, but continued counting the rags and cords she carried to protect her hands and bandage any possible wounds.

“Well, it's hell, whoever goes in there never comes out. And Ace, even though he is an idiot, has the right to fulfill his dreams, to sail the sea, see mermaids and dragons or whatever he wants.” Frustration caused her a toothache as she clenched the teethes. “And he is my friend. I can't abandon my friends like that.”

“Nami, Nami, listen to me. Nami, do you see me?” Luffy rolled, desperate to be heard, until he put his face next to her knee.

She didn't even have time to assimilate the fact that she had accepted out loud a clearly suicidal friendship before Dadan anticipated her regrets.

“And how else can you abandon them?”

That time Nami was silent.

“Nami, Nami, Nami, Nami, Nami, Nami” Luffy claimed.

The background noise, the repetition of her name on a loop, the weight of guilt and her friend's head on her leg, caused Nami a mental explosion that was impossible to cope with. Decisively, she closed the bag in a single gesture and stood up, determined to get away from the imminent argument. She was better at acting than talking. She preferred to take a gamble rather than having to continue talking about feelings, in the end freeing a person couldn't be too different from stealing a bag of gold, or so she hoped.

Nami was surprised to think that she had gone to Dawn Island to get away from pillage and ended up planning the biggest heist of his life.

Her steps ring like bells in the echo of the room full of bandits and Nami hated hearing herself like a little elf.

“Nami, you're stupid. And I'm going to go with you, because I have to...”

The last vestige of peace was cracked by Luffy's voice over the vibration of her small steps. She turned around and faced him with the suppressed rage of years of helplessness.

“No, Luffy ! I said you're staying! All this has become complicated because of me, don't you understand? No one should have recognized us, but I was a proud fool and now Ace has two days left breathing fresh air before a lifetime locked in the depths of the fucking sea. I'm sick and tired of letting everyone down! And this time it's not going to go wrong, I'm not going to allow it.” She breathed heavily through her nose, with Luffy 's black eyes fixed on her. “So no one can accompany me.”

Luffy held out his rubber hand to hold her back, signs of anger creasing his forehead, but she shook off his grip and ran towards the door.

“Nami…!”

The cold outside hit her in the face as she opened the door and closed it behind. Raindrops from a summer storm scratched her skin as she ran toward the nearest tree and plunged through the undergrowth, straight toward the city. Her name became a constant cry against her back, but Nami played with the advantage of being agile and having orientation, so she played with that.

The path in the cold, alone, lengthened like a spider's thread, weaving possibilities and dark ideas inside her mind.

Nami didn't want to think and yet the ideas hammered at her temple. Instead of running she wanted to fly, to go so fast that she would leave the thoughts behind.

After taking Ace out there would be no turning back, as soon as they stepped onto the street she would leave. She would be gone so far away that she wouldn't be able to hear anything from them again. The dreams of hope would die once and forever right there.

Nami wouldn't put the archipelago in danger, nor her village, nor Genzo again. Nor Nojiko, never her.

She felt a stone crack the sole of her sandals, but she continued running. She suffocated between snorts and refused to look back.

Every step away from Luffy tore her heart so deeply and profoundly that she had the urge to rip off her weak skin in strips and start crying right there. By the time the wall appeared she was so soaked that she didn't know where the rain began and her tears ended.

Inside the city, silence was savored, induced by what appeared to be a curfew. Behind the windows, the light was visible, but the bars and shops had been closed, not a soul was walking on the sidewalk. Nami approached the walls and tried to blend into the shadows. The soaked clothes offered her mental clarity and as she walked in the direction of the marine barracks, she tried to calm her heartbeat, knowing that her nerves would lead to disaster.

In the barracks, only two senior guards were stationed there and that burned her spine, suspicious of the lax protection they had for a prisoner accused of killing the king.

Her attention dispersed when she heard the commotion of nearby voices. Her heart leaped into the mouth as she hid behind a wicker basket, one heartbeat away from being discovered. Deafness worked against thieves and she knew it well, but that day it was impossible for her to be warned, with the background noise caused by the rain and clouding the little reaction time she had.

When Nami calmed down, instead of continuing directly to the cells, she skirted the shadows after those two marines. Ready to follow their trail.

She knew instinct had not failed her when she saw a swarm of men around the main gate of the palace destroyed the other day.

The cold iron of the building's showy balconies bit into her palms as Nami swayed for support as she entered the building. Despite the warnings that morning, no one had taken precautions, because when she broke the glass, no one came to stop her.

Nami forced herself to breathe once more the cold that reddened her cheeks before entering the interior of the palace, straight into the lion's den.

Inside, the heat curled around the wet clothes and she shook off the rain and tears with the art learned from a wet cat. As she did so, a thought gave her the impetus to smile at the old skeleton she had snuck into.

Nami would leave the island in style, with the best theft so far. Because that night she would steal the most prized person in the country of Goa.

A killer of kings. A future pirate captain. A brother and a friend.

She would get Ace out of prison so he could experience the freedom she was denied.

That would be her last thank you gift to Luffy, the biggest job in the thief cat's career.

Chapter Text

There were many things Nami didn't know about herself. She hadn’t knowledge of her origins, she could have been the daughter of an empress or a traitor to the government, but she only knew that her mother adopted her as a war orphan. She didn't know why she was able to predict the weather, but as soon as the hair on her arms stood up or her nose itched, she knew when the atmospheric pressure was going up or down. She had no memory of the first time she wanted something and hid it in her pocket, but she remembered in detail the first time she stole a pirate.

He was a man with a broad shoulder and a blue beard who had killed two children to get his parents' fortune. Murder and piracy seemed enough to enter in his ship one spring night.

Despite the fear and bloodshed, the crew had not managed to amass much fortune, but it was enough to make her pockets warm and cool down his bloody mind.

Nami remembered that night with her heart in the mouth and the nerves one step away from suffocating her. She had taken off her shoes to enter and had left anything metallic at the port to avoid unnecessary noise.

In every moment she believed they would catch her, something would go wrong, and they would cut her throat like the little children they used as bait, however, everything went without problems. By the time she left the ship and restored the fortune to the poor parents, the windows were still vibrating slightly from the snoring.

She celebrated all night, caressing the gold coins and bad crystal jewelry she took for her.

The next day the bodies of the children's parents hung from the ship's mast, both tortured, lifeless, with the woman's hands still twisted in search of an empty prayer and a pearl necklace around her neck.

Nami never again caressed a coin with devotion or struck a blow without leaving traces of her presence, that was how the burglar cat made a name for herself. A name against which to direct the rage, a name to incriminate herself.

So, once she entered the palace in search of Ace, it seemed unnatural for the girl to head into the hallway without leaving a footprint behind, a strange sound, the trace of some article of clothing or a strand of hair that spoke of her identity.

In the hallway the noise was enough to raise suspicions, so Nami went there with the certainty that she would find something, by hook or by crook. Luckily, the building was old and owned by people with enough money to have a collection of ridiculous furniture in every corner, so it wasn't very difficult for her to go unnoticed as she moved forward, even paying attention to her shadow.

She didn't take long to reach the landing of the main stairs, full of marines and royal guards who spoke with their arms crossed, sleep and alertness written on their faces.

Even though she hadn't been sure before whether or not Ace would be there, the commotion made it clear to Nami that her suspicions were real.

With the quickness of years of practice, she unlocked an adjoining room with her lockpicks and slipped away into the darkness. In the room there were a dozen rolled up rugs and poorly stacked paintings. The one they had placed centered, next to the window, was burned around the edges. As she approached, a myriad of stone chips stuck in her sandals as she opened the window and climbed onto the facade.

Below, the group of marines talked and argued in the darkness.

Nami took two deep breaths and leaned on the windowsill, her attention focused on the light spilling from a room two windows away. The rain and dust threatened to let her slide to the ground. A bad grip and she would end up three floors away, close to the cemetery.

She need to be careful. Step by step.

A foot on the sheet of plaster. The hand on the windowsill. A step forward. Turn around. Foot on…

The murmuring at her feet increased to an alarming level. Because if she could hear it so clearly, it meant they were screaming. A tremor made her recoil and for a moment Nami felt her heart in the throat as she lost support under one of her feet.

With her stomach inverted, she dared to look down, sure that someone was already pointing a rifle at her.

The straw hat she found facing the battalion left her motionless for a moment, at the mercy of the cold and the storm.

The rain soaked her and despite everything, she felt the warmth she had lost while running through the forest embrace her again. Despite poor hearing and the distance between them, Nami heard the sound of his screams before launching into the fight. And regardless of everything, the regrets, the escape, an acid farewell and the fact that this would probably be the last time she would meet him in her life, it was all worth it when she saw him there fighting for Ace and for her, for giving her the opportunity to fight.

Decisively, Nami took a step forward and continued advancing along the façade. Luffy's scuffle would serve as a distraction while she got Ace out of there.

When she reached the illuminated window, for lack of hearing, she crouched down to look inside.

A whiff of heat reddened her cheeks and to her good luck she found that the window was not completely closed because someone had opened it before. Inside she discovered without much effort the figure of Ace, tied to a marble column of the old structure. His body was covered in wounds and blood was constantly dripping from his nose.

Relief mixed with fear when a figure in a white uniform that she hadn’t noticed before came from around the corner to punch the teenager, sending tiny drops of blood onto the ground.

Nami swayed dangerously when a man's arm surprised her just inches from the glass. She heard the screams below get louder as she moved to avoid the void.

The man who had just approached the window stuck his head out and watched the brawl that Luffy was making below. Nami was surrounded by the sweet aroma of an expensive cologne, excessive for a marine, more typical of wealthy nobles with money.

The girl pressed herself so tightly against the façade that she felt as if she would end up melting into the wall. Her heart was pounding so hard in the chest that Nami was convinced the man would feel its vibrations. The strands of hair that preceded the indigestible smell gave her the sensation that they were stealing the orange light from inside the house.

"It's an idiot making noise, don't worry, captain, continue with the interrogation" the man said as he turned around, heading into the room.

Heat poured out of the window as the man entered and furrowed Nami's skin like a blanket.

As soon as he turned around, she stuck her head out again, and Ace's swollen, sore eyes, admiring the window for his brother's confused cries, collided with her. For a moment horror fused with pain in Ace's grim expression and the guard who had pulled back his arm with the intention of disfiguring his face narrowed the gaze outside.

Nami didn't have time to think about strategies, plans or curses. She jumped over the sill with her bo staff in front of her and managed to knock the stinking nobleman unconscious with a single blow to the back of the head. Before the huge punching gorilla had time to take position, she turned around and kicked him in the chest, leaving him without enough air to raise the alarm. He stumbled backwards and with the help of Ace's timely trip, the man ended up hitting a piece of rubbish furniture. He fell dry, with the eyes blank.

The room was silent for a moment before Ace broke the formalities with an insult.

“You are idiot.”

Nami was hurt by the insult after all the effort she had put in the rescue plan, but she raised the head proudly and untied him from the column with a simple gesture of her wrist. Too proud to admit it.

“I wasn't going to…”

Ace threw himself on top of her and Nami fell sitting on the ground with the boy's arms around her.

“Ace I don't...”

“You're an idiot and it makes no sense that you're here. I’m so angry… I've already told Luffy a thousand times that I could take care of the problems alone, that he or you should be chosen before me." the boy repeated, squeezing her tightly in his arms. “But thanks, thank you very much for coming for me.”

Ace was heavy, his hair tickled her nose and made her sweat, but for once, Nami didn't feel discomfort, instead she felt a relief that left her weak in the bones. The relief of knowing that for the first time since she had arrived on that island she had done something right, a decision that she would not regret no matter how much time passed or no matter how bad things went with Arlong, was enormous.

The sensation was as fleeting as a star when the door behind them was opened by a mountain of white cloth, beard and seagulls, dragging Luffy by the neck.

Ace backed away from her with fear in his eyes as the broad, burly old man threw his brother over both of them.

“You have three seconds to tell me what the hell happened before you regret it!”

Nami trembled, but to her surprise, she wasn't the only one to do so.

“Who…?”

"Grandpa, we weren't expecting you for dinner." Ace whispered in a low voice.

The man lowered his head alarmingly while Nami trembled under the sight of the stars on his shoulder. The dog ears of a cap that was more than unremarkable for a man of that age swung over his temples as he moved.

“Grandpa?” she croaked.

The man turned his gaze in her direction to scrutinize her up and down in a millimetric manner, offended by the name.

“Have you adopted another one?”

Chapter Text

Nami learned that moles ran in the family the first time her mother lovingly stroked the ones on her arms. Lying in bed one lazy day, Bellemere told her that her parents must have had a lot of moles because her back was full of constellations form with them. At first she disliked the idea, aware that it was one more fact that separated her from her real family.

That unpleasant feeling had disappeared a long time ago, but when she recognized the same mole that Luffy had on his neck on the old marine who threw the boy at Ace and her, the envy stirred in her stomach again, although it wasn’t the moment for those things.

Silence embraced everyone when the old man shot them with his gaze.

“Have you adopted another?”

The question to Nami reminded her of those dead hours comparing moles in her room, surrounded by the smell of tangerines and a growling stomach. He was surprised to feel a pang of discomfort in his head as he thought about it.

“I don't need anyone to adopt me. I already have a family, sir. My sister is waiting for me at home.” She declared with her chin as high as she could manage. “I came to save Ace.”

The man raised his eyebrows at the outburst of boldness and leaned over her to examine her from end to end. His eyes tickled her skin as they lingered on the dark bruises that obscured her face here and there. They had begun to turn green with the touch of color of age, as if they dated the abuse by date and time in the eyes of the old marine.

“The thing about fighting for lost causes runs in the family, apparently. I like it. You will be a good marine.”

Her cheeks boiled at such a vision of the future.

“You will never see me with a seagull sewn to my clothes.” the voice was low in two tones, icy. “Marines are the same scum as pirates.”

Her words devoured the sound of the room until silence took over the unexpected gathering of fugitives, jailers, and prisoners.

For a moment Nami wondered if she had gone too far, if she had to wait for a slap to the face or a kick to the ribs.

Whatever those words were answered, they never got it, interrupted by the clatter of dozens of footsteps on the marble floor. Nami felt the rain freeze on her skin.

"Vice Admiral Garp" the voice came low intimidated by the tall figure of the man with dog ears at the door of the room. “We had no news of his arrival.”

“I also had no news that my grandson had been arrested, and in this small, narrow hallway we find ourselves nonetheless. One more day surrounded by incompetent, don't you think, official?

Nami shifted in discomfort while one of Luffy's hands crawled up her shirt to make her retreat towards him and Ace, like an octopus protecting its treasure.

She narrowed her gaze to focus on Ace's swollen face and Luffy's possessiveness and anxiety.

“You haven't told me that your grandfather was a vice admiral.”

Ace snorted.

"You don't talk much about the family either" the reply came out less accusatory than it might have been understood between the hoarse voice and the dried blood on the boy's lips.

“We didn't know who the boy was, we just arrested the only suspect in the king's murder.”

The old man growled and Nami began to value the true meaning of the canine cap over the web of gray hair.

"So you're telling me, Captain, that you beat up suspects instead of looking for the guilty? With what evidence do you accuse the boy? Have you done anything more than smash his face?”

The tension could be felt among the golden decorations of the palace, which called with tinkling light to fill empty pockets.

“I... Sir.”

“Didn't you hear me?! Show me the evidence of his guilt immediately!”

Luffy's arms tightened around his two prey after his grandfather's outburst.

“There are two witnesses who accused him.”

The old man's shoulders contracted at the possibility, but instead of softening, he grew the anger.

“And what have they said? Why are you showing this fucking show?”

The officer hesitated as he glanced back over his shoulder at his companions. One of the men lying on the ground, unconscious, stirred and the officer pointed a finger at him.

“I don't know, sir, he is one of the witnesses, if you need it, you could ask him. The transfer order to Impel Down has already been processed, I don't…”

"So, let me clarify," Garp interrupted the speech in a voice that predicted nothing beyond a bleak winter, "one of the two witnesses, who have not discussed their testimony with the naval officers, was torturing my grandson to make him confess before you put him on a ship and imprison him for his entire life?”

The man's mouth twisted as two of his companions backed away under the threat of his voice.

“We didn't know he was his grandson. The other boy snuck into the barracks this morning, sir" added one of the recruits, pointing to Luffy's outstretched arms as if that were enough of an accusation. “And he went with the girl. One of the prisoners recognized her as the Cat Burglar. He told us she works for Arlong.”

Nami's mouth froze full of empty words and clearly insufficient excuses as the old man twisted his neck to fix the deadliest gaze he has on the two accused. Luffy swallowed and Ace squirmed in his brother's arms.

“My grandchildren the only thing they were trying to do was free their unjustly imprisoned brother. If there is anything else you would like information about, we will be happy to assist you at home, where I will take them to treat the wounds of the minor whom you have tortured to obtain a tainted confession.”

One of the marines cleared his throat and the vice admiral squinted towards the sound with the slowness of a beast facing its prey.

“I will keep them under surveillance and at your disposal in case you find anything more than the testimonial evidence of the subject lying on the ground. I want the file of this case tomorrow at eight at the door of my house. Is it clear?”

The cadets and officers stood at attention in unison at the question.

“Yes sir.”

"Perfect" the man agreed.

Nami, who had remained silent until then, withdrawn into herself, was startled when the old man leaned over Luffy, Ace and her and lifted them off the ground as if they were made of cotton instead of blood and flesh.

"Now, if you don't mind, I have two idiots to talk to and an injured person to take care of. I'll wait for you tomorrow at my house.”

Luffy withdrew his suffocating hug from Ace, resentful of the squeeze, and focused on hugging her as if she were a raft in the middle of the waves while Nami felt herself adrift in an unexpected storm.

Chapter Text

The moment Garp released the three of them in the entrance of the house, Nami thrashed around like a cornered lizard trying to get away from her tail. The place was full of dust and the sound of hinges creacked behind them. The sound was afwal and Nami felt trapped unable to get rid of Luffy's suffocating arms, the teen were clinging to her like a tick while the old man took off his coat and threw it on the sofa in the entrance.

“I thought my toothache would disappear when you grew up, but I’ll need new teeth from clenching  them so much because of you, bastards!”

Ace snorted, but it was Luffy who responded from behind Nami's shoulder.

“This time it wasn't our fault, gramps!”

Ace nodded as he threw himself onto the couch and kicked up a tangle of dust.

“It was the fault of that posh man Nami knocked out, and of course, of your dear marines. They’re more corrupt and have less morals than the mounta…”

Garp interrupted his grandson with a fuss as he leaned over him and grabbed his chin to check the wounds that framed his face.

“There is corruption even the Sundays, kiddo. The best way to beat them is from the inside, you going to the sea with a pirate flag it’s not the fucking way.”

Nami, silent since Garp left her on the ground, snorted at the man's idea and, for her misery, the old man's gaze captured hers in a matter of seconds.

“So… we’re talking too much if we have part of the Arlong crew right here, aren’t we, Cat Burglar?”

She stirred, hurt by such direct and incisive words. Luffy surrounded her more tightly, almost suffocating her, and for a few moments she wondered if he was punishing or anchoring her to the ground so she wouldn't run. His embrace overwhelmed her in every way, accustomed to being cold in the face of danger, not suffocating heat.

“And what difference does it make to you, geezer? I have the right to do what I want with my life.”

The man limped up from the couch and she prepared for the blow, but instead of heading directly to the corner where she was, he turned around, entered what must have been a small bathroom on the ground floor, and came out with a first aid kit which he threw at Ace before sitting next to him and grabbing cotton and a bottle of alcohol.

“I'm a Marine, girl, by definition I put pirates like you behind bars.” She twisted her mouth, but from a distance it seemed more like a reproach than a threat. “Start talking girl, it’s time for it. If I didn’t leave you at the mercy of those officers it was because of what you have done for my grandchildren, but I have no mercy for your kind.”

She squirmed, weighed down by Luffy's arms until she detached herself from him and was able to approach the wall more precisely, longing to find a wall that would protect her back. She always had a certain appreciation for the roundness of the walls of Arlong Park, because, although she hated the structure, she also felt covered by the sides.

Her friend leaned over her, frowningly evaluating those words that didn't quite sink in to him. Luffy wasn’t particularly sharp and Nami, between cramps and chest pains, longed to see betrayal marked in those innocent eyes. It's not that she liked leathery emotions, but she needed to feel the bitter taste that settled in her throat, the stinging sensation in her arms that promised to tear hope from her gut.

She needed to grab in the memory Luffy's disappointment before she left, because she felt unable to live with the heartbreaking hope of seeing either of them again when all they could offer her were impossible dreams.

“I don't understand, Nami, you can't be a pirate if you hate us.”

She laughed, hunched over, her hand on the wall behind her.

“I don't hate you, Luffy, because you're not a pirate. I told you what real pirates are like, I told you that they were scum, that you should never trust how far a pirate can go to get what he wants. I warned you and you didn't listen to me. It's your fault for not listen.”

The teen denied vigorously, still rooted in the phase that preceded a painful acceptance.

“No, Nami, you're not like that.”

A cruel, anodyne laugh grew deep in her throat to transform into the cruelty she needed to keep going.

"I'm not what? I already told you I'm a thief. I lied to you, I played with you and I think it’s time for me to leave. What do you really know about me?"

The boy placed his feet on the ground and the innocence transformed into a seriousness that bordered on anger.

“You're lying now, Nami, not before. Yes, you're a thief, but you only steal from bad guys. You're not bad, you don't like pirates and you have fun with us. You're my friend, fool, so if you have problems just ask for help. But don't pretend you're evil when you shared your lentils with us.”

Luffy took the lead of the conversation and Garp, despite the fact that he seemed to be taking center stage in the room, left the burden to him.

Ace snorted from the couch and Nami's rage bubbled like foam.

“You'd better keep quiet!” she shouted at the convalescent before he could open the mouth. “If it hadn't been for them arresting you, I would already be with my sis… with Arlong!”

“You love talking like you're the worst person in the world when what you're saying is that you decided to save me rather than go with that pirate. I'm sure he's the one who left your face in a mess. Or not?”

The accusation sounded like a hammer on a bell. Luffy walked forward to her, immersed fully in the discussion.

“Don't lie, Nami. You told me yesterday. When I asked you who was punishing you, you said the name of this Aron guy.”

“Arlong, Luffy, his name’s Arlong !” she barked, tired of nonsense “And he is my real captain, not an idiot with childish dreams!”

The boy's face turned an angry red. He opened his mouth as if he lacked the strength to breathe and approached her with tense shoulders. Nami felt with two fingers on the wall in search of a crevice where she could find support.

“Take it back !”

“No!”

“You're my navigator, Nami, I don't care what you say! And whether you like it or not, I'm going to be the Pirate King. If you want to continue cowering there, scared to death and not asking for help, I don't care, you're going to watch me break the teeth of that bastard and his group for locking you up, for hitting you and for making you believe that you're bad.”

“I don't need you...!”

“Well, that's enough!” With just three words, Garp nipped the argument in the bud, leaving behind a trail of disjointed breaths and locked screams. “From now on you are under my conservatorship, girl. So get used to the idea that you are not going to see a pirate again in the rest of your life unless it is to take him to prison!”

“But she's my friend!” Luffy exclaimed, outraged. An exclamation that both Nami and Garp ignored, immersed in a more important conversation.

“You have no right to forbid me anything! The navy has no right to tell me what to do!”

“I can and I’m doing it cause I'm your grandfather!”

She pushed herself away from the wall, enraged, to stick out her chest as she faced him.

“Since when?! I'm no one's granddaughter, man.”

“Since I adopted you into the palace, haven't you heard it?”

She stomped her foot hard enough to make the old wooden board complain under the abuse. Although she remained calm enough to breathe hard and focus her thoughts.

What’s matter what the geezer said? Nami couldn't care less that an old Marine had grandpa dreams. She forced down a shiver as she relaxed the shoulders and straightened her back. She focused on closing the door on those emotions she refused to catalog in the heat of the moment and crushed vain hopes before they were even born.

“Bah, I'm not listening to an old man with senile dementia and two idiots. I have to prepare a return trip, I've already wasted enough time with all this.”

“You're better than me at self-deprecation. Awesome, Nami,” Ace commented.

Garp stood up from the couch with a finger already raised in her direction. The threat made her step back again, her head buried between the shoulders, accustomed to the beatings from these types of big, mountainous men.

“Well, that's it. You are grounded! You're going to remain under my watch until I consider that you've forgotten that nonsense about running away with those damned pirates, you understand me?”

Nami shrank with each giant step until she felt like an ant in front of him, with the courage of feeling small bubbling in her veins.

“Respond. I asked you if you understood me, Nami.”

“Fuck you.” despite the rebellion that the phrase itself marked, her voice came out in barely a thread. “I can leave here whenever I want. I am free to do whatever I want. Anyway Arlong will come looking for me if I'm not the one who comes back. And you won't be able to do anything against him.”

As she spoke, Nami turned quickly towards the door, but before she had even touched the knob, Garp grabbed her by the shirt and lifted her into the air as if she weighed nothing, just as if she were a cat at the mercy of its owner. The fear increased as she lost the contact with the floor and her willpower began to smoke in search of release.

"I don't want Arlong to hurt them" she nodded to Luffy and Ace, unable to find a way out of the quagmire she had ended up in, "and my people need me. My sister... if I leave her alone Arlong...”

Garp's face, darkened with defiance, softened at the last sentence the teenager whispered. Anxiety clawed at her arms and it was difficult for her to breathe without suffocating at the not-so-distant future of her village being devastated by the fish men if she didn't manage to escape from there in time. And meanwhile, she hung pathetic under the enormous hand of that old man.

"Don't worry about us, I'm going to beat up that Arlong man, Nami, you'll see when..." Garp silenced his grandson with a little smack before he continued with the tirade.

“Well, let's start at the beginning, shall we?”

The voice seemed foreign to the dark situation that had befallen her. Still with her feet in the air, she looked up, refusing herself to live afflicted by fear, the man's eyes seemed pleased with the girl's courage.

“I'm Monkey D. Garp and from now on you will call me Grandpa. Now start telling the full story before I decide to extend your grounding until your hair grows gray.”

Chapter Text

Nami didn’t usually think much about Arlong’s mark, or at least that’s what she told herself every night when she forced her mind to wander elsewhere. Sometimes, in the early hours of the morning when she struggled to breathe while thinking about the future, she would wake up with the sensation of an open wound on her shoulder, a wound that one day would leave her bleeding out on the ground, surrounded by a pool of resentment, fear, and hatred.

She had dreamed for so many nights about the unpleasant sensation of the ink devouring her from the inside that she had long since stopped counting the nightmares. It was the evidence of Arlong’s power over her, the ultimate betrayal of her mother's memory, the barrier that would always separate her from her sister, Genzo, and all the villagers. It was proof that, in the end, she would always have a stain on her soul.

Nami had often thought about taking a knife and cutting her skin off until the ink forgot her. When she left the island for long trips, she would sometimes scratch her shoulder until she felt the blood drip and close her eyes, dreaming that the sticky liquid was black instead of red. Even so, she would often find solace in the tattoo’s reflection in calm water because, when it was hard for her to return to where fear nested, to Arlong’s claws, the image of the black ink reminded her of the invisible chain around her neck, and only then would she force herself to sail against the wind.

She always knew that the day would come when she would tear it off. A distant and merciful future, when her debt was paid. The problem, she realized on Dawn Island, was that her shoulder had begun to weigh her down, and it became increasingly difficult for her to lift it without feeling the ink, sticky and corrosive, eating away at her from inside.

Every time Luffy hugged her or played with her, even when Ace prodded her with words full of concern, her arm’s nerves went numb, and her fingers tingled.

Ace and Luffy, who had already glimpsed of her story through her welts and distrust, remained so silent that the moonlight must have hesitated to fall on them, so similar to ghosts and as hard as rocks. Their grandpa, on the other hand, began to grow and grow until, at a certain point, he threw patience out the door and filled the room with rage. Her voice faltered, and her eyes fell straight to the ground when she remembered that day when her mother’s name became synonymous with massacre.

Garp squeezed her so tightly that maybe a lone tear escaped.

That early morning, when Garp finally released her and sent her and Luffy to bed, with a dry, pasty mouth, freed from the weight of her story, which still ran through the wooden veins of the marine’s little house, her shoulder didn’t hurt, it burned. It burned like her eyes, swollen from holding back the tears, and like her throat, exhausted from recounting a story that had remained covered for so many years under a layer of secrecy, fear, and death.

When she got into bed, Luffy wrapped around her like a lock around a treasure. Nami sensed it was the fear that she might run away, that constant flight she always had tied to her feet.

Downstairs, Garp’s deep voice danced syllable by syllable with Ace’s in a conversation Nami couldn’t make out through her grogginess but felt in the way the glass of a painting full of ships and anchors, covered in pirate flag drawings, vibrated.

Luffy’s hand on her inked shoulder made her squirm in that tight embrace. Apparently, the boy had said something in a voice so low that her tired ears had completely missed it.

“What?”

“Do you still want to leave?”

The question touched on those secrets that now surrounded the house. No longer as secret, no longer as heavy. But just as painful as when they were first created.

“If you knew everything I’ve done, you wouldn’t want me to stay with you.”

“You’re not bad.”

She sighed and focused her gaze on the glass’s reflection that moved with the vibration of the conversation below.

“Good people don’t kill.”

Luffy closed his mouth for two seconds, but he didn’t let go before diving into the depths of a past from which Nami only knew how to run.

“Have you killed, Nami?”

The ink that lived under her shoulder squirmed under the weight of the memories as she gave voice, between whispers and sorrow, to a sea of regrets.

She remembered her mother, the warm blood, the cold eyes.

She remembered a woman whose hands were still tangled in a pearl necklace.

She remembered that boy she had tried to help escape and whose ghost still haunted her on the nights when the unfortunate came to Arlong Park’s gates for a bit of revenge.

She remembered the first slaughter she attended with the crew.

And as she remembered, her fingers became sticky, bloodied.

Her tongue stung when she bit it, aware that she was a coward who didn’t want to lose Luffy under the weight of those sins. She nodded with her aching shoulder and her head down, refusing to cry because a sinner didn’t deserve compassion, didn’t deserve pity.

“Shanks lost an arm for me, you know? A Sea King ate it whole.”

The statement caught Nami by surprise, unable to articulate a response to that blood-filled memory that didn’t belong to the circle of her sins.

“The truth is, I think you're like him, but you’ve lost so many arms that the monster has eaten you whole, and since you’re inside its enormous belly, you can’t see well; you’re a caterpillar. Sacrificing yourself for friends isn’t bad. Shanks did it for me, and your mother did it for your sister and you. But you need help because your Sea King is very big, and hey, don’t worry! It’s okay because we’re here. There’s me, and there’s Ace, and although he’s scary, Grandpa’s also here. Soon, you’ll be a beetle; you’ll see.”

Luffy put his sentences together, mixing up ideas, but she liked the way he seemed to build and dismantle words while he spoke because he did it with care and honesty. With that magic that only lived on the lips of someone who has never stopped dreaming.

“Thank you,” she whispered warmly, her eyes still wet, but her heart a bit warmer.

The boy laughed, already rocked in the promise of a world far from everyday problems, and the ink under her veins curled up, still guilty but a little fresher. Before she slipped fully into unconsciousness, she felt like a large, wrinkled hand was stroking her head, and Nami allowed herself to dream of a life surrounded by windmills, tangerines, fights, and dirt.

A pleasant dream to cling to while asleep, even as she denied it to herself when she opened her eyes. Because until everything was securely in place, she would never allow herself to dream while awake.

In the meantime, she would enjoy the nights surrounded by a warm life, far removed from ink and the grim reality.

Despite the warmth with which she had fallen asleep, Nami woke up freezing. Luffy's embrace had loosened while the octopus boy tossed and turned in his sleep under the dawn light. The house remained silent, either because it was still early or because they had stayed up so late the night before.

As she sat on the mattress, with what seemed to be Ace's breath on the back of her neck, she became aware that it wasn't yet eight o'clock because no one had knocked on the door with the file Garp had requested. Slowly, and knowing that once the old man woke up, it would be impossible to leave that house, she got up, still dressed in the clothes and bruises from the previous day, and slipped out of the partially open second-floor window, guilt gnawing at the back of her mind. Even though she shouldn't feel guilty because, after all, Nami had decided to stay. She had told everything, and that story would only lead to death if she returned, for her and her family. Arlong only had compassion for his own kind and his interests, and Nami would cease to interest him the moment he saw how she had sold him out to the Marines. Even though that "Marine" only had one member and was the grandfather of two wild children, he was still a Vice Admiral, which is why she had trusted him—because, even if it was for the love of those children, Nami had faith in the strength of that affection, which could be sensed between the anger and the scolding.

Even so, if she wanted to stay and lend a hand to that strange family, she first needed to position the pieces correctly on the board. Only then could she face a threat like the one that awaited her on Cocoyashi Island, and for that, she had to return to the ship to gather the supplies stored beneath its floorboards

The door opened quietly, and she left a visible fingerprint on the doorknob, to remove any responsibility from the boy who was still rocking in his sleep, clutching a pillow in his rubbery arms.

The house was near Foosha Village, so she took the liberty of leaving another trace of her presence when she greeted Makino, who was already preparing the tavern for opening time.

“Nami! They told me you were with Garp and the kids. Have they already released Ace?”

Makino's voice was tinged with hope, and the girl’s stomach twisted. She should have avoided the place, she thought, as she twisted a loose thread from her shirt sleeve between her fingers, where the tattoo urged her to take to the sea and never return.

“The old man wants to take care of everything, ma’am. I imagine he’ll sort it out. I would never mess with a man like him if I were one of those Marine thugs.”

The soft, reddened lips of that maternal-looking woman curved at her words, and Nami tried to distance herself from the gravitational pull of a woman like her. With that aura that only mothers radiated. The worst nightmare for an orphan like her, who lately found herself drawn to any promise of family, however weak.

“I’m glad to hear that. Come, stay for breakfast, Nami. Isn’t Luffy with you today?”

She shook her head, downcast. Her fingers tingled as she forced herself to squirm under the weight of the lie.

“No, I’m sorry, ma’am. I have to pick up some things, and Garp sent me to get them now while Ace and Luffy are still asleep and can’t cause a fuss over everything. You know how they are.”

The innkeeper laughed softly, but Nami didn’t give her time to respond. She headed toward the cliff, urgency in her steps and guilt clinging to her back.

Even if it was just to collect the maps and the Den Den Mushi hidden aboard her small boat and buy some time.

The sea was choppy when she reached the spot where she had moored her little boat, and she quickly tasted the salt in the air.

She had hidden the boat well, so with the high tide, it took some effort to reach the light planks and climb aboard with some semblance of elegance. She wobbled a bit when she finally managed it and had to grab onto the mast like any child touching the sea with their feet on wood for the first time.

Once her stomach had fully grasped that it wasn’t the time to throw everything up, and when she finally steadied herself—something that always took her a few seconds longer than the rest of the world due to her ears—she dug her fingers into one of the planks that separated the boat's real bottom from the thin air bubble that kept it from the depths of the sea.

Her hands went numb from the cold water and the effort. By the time the plank finally gave way, Nami was gasping, with the icy droplets of the sea caressing her body.

The cold intensified, and she lost what little air remained in her lungs when she realized, horrified, that the small bag containing the backup maps and the Den Den Mushi had disappeared.

Hysterical, she fell to her knees on the floor, completely soaked by the waves and groped unsuccessfully at the bottom of the boat. Her hands trembled, paralyzed by fear and cold.

“Looking for this? Nami, dear.”

Her blood turned to ice, and the most absolute terror, lodged in her throat, anchored her there, curled up on herself.

The small shell jingled in front of her, near her blue-tipped fingers. She felt like wax when a scaly, jelly-like hand touched her neck, lifting her chin as it squeezed the tender flesh of her throat.

Arlong.

Arlong had come looking for her.

“I hope you missed me, my sweet kitten,” the fish-man's other slimy, cold hand sought out the hidden ink to pierce one of his claws into it. “I definitely missed you. You had me worried after so long without answering my calls. Right, Chew?”

Her already pale face went completely white at the sight of blonde hair emerging from the sea, alongside two dark pigtails and a tentacle too large to be a coincidence in those murky waters.

“Arlong, I…”

The excuse didn’t even have a chance to be born before the man tightened his grip around her neck.

“Save it, dear. I’m sure your old Marine loves the bedtime stories you tell, but I’ve seen enough to know what you’ve done, idiot.”

She shook her head vigorously, desperate.

“No…”

“You betrayed me, Nami. Kurobi was right—humans know nothing but how to lie.”

The hand choking her tightened to the point where the long, serrated nose of the fish-man became the center of her world. Her shoulder throbbed with his claw buried in her flesh.

She tried to breathe, but Arlong’s hand squeezed her throat even more. She whimpered, terrified. Her legs, already clumsy in the icy water and the cold of the morning, burned, hot.

Hachi’s squeaky voice reached her ears, weakened by the lack of air and fear.

“Captain, I think she just peed herself.”

Shame didn’t even cross her mind as Arlong and his crew’s laughter filled her ears, with the world turning into a sphere of darkness and her body aching, increasingly numbed by the lack of oxygen.

Arlong’s long fingers relaxed around her neck, and Nami finally managed to gulp in air. Her lungs burned, and the world went black and silent again, as desperation found her once more in its rough embrace.

“Thank your mother for teaching you to do something, or you’d already be dead, traitor.”

Through the haze, she thought there couldn’t be two more different embraces—it should be unnatural. Luffy’s arms were elastic and warm when she had woken up tangled in them just an hour before. Now that the world was fading again, they seemed part of a cruel joke, twisted and cheerful, amid the cold and cruel misfortune that had always been and would always be her life.

Chapter Text

On a spring night, a bit colder than usual, Genzo ventured to tell the two mischievous sisters their first horror story. They were still too young to truly understand what fear meant, but Nami loved the tingling and jolts the scares gave her. The story made the hair on her arms stand on end, and the blood swirled in her ears, vibrating. For her, who relied so much on touch and instinct that she sometimes considered them a gift, having her nerves pushed to the edge of sanity made her feel alive.

As the years passed and she discovered the true meaning of fear, the stories told by the love of the fire became unpleasant to her, a childish and greedy memory. So innocent she despised it. So naive she missed it. So distant that she sometimes thought it was a stolen memory. She was so good at stealing that perhaps even that happy childhood was nothing more than someone else’s memory. It was impossible she had ever been happy.

She was condemned to live with fear, anger, and sadness.

When she awoke from that dream that wasn’t a dream, the waves were caressing her feet. She had to squeeze her eyes shut tightly to avoid being blinded by the sun, and for a moment, she felt free—no name, no age, no burdens on her back—just a child sleeping under the sun. Until a cold, scaly, sharp hand gripped her forearm, and the nameless girl was called Nami once again.

Despite the pit that formed in her stomach as she remembered where she was and who she was, she opened her eyes with a slowness which belonged to the calm or the cold-bloodedness of someone who had learned to face fear with hostility.

“Did you have sweet dreams, Nami?”

The irony scraped her ears like the squeal of metal.

As she sat up, she trembled slightly, but she made sure the fear didn’t show on her face. Her awareness had given her enough time to gather the broken pieces of her wall, and adrenaline burned in her veins.

“What are you doing here, Arlong?”

The Fishman sat on the rocks with his feet submerged in the sea, his gaze fixed on her. Nami had the feeling that the monsters from the deep had taken the familiar form to chain her up again, and now she trembled not just from fear but from cold.

“Since you didn’t come, we decided to come and see you,” he said, his eyes gleaming sharply as he licked his tongue between his sharp teeth. “But apparently, I can’t even talk to the crew without the girls pissing themselves. Got anything to tell us, Nami?”

She clenched her toes and straightened her shoulders, used to facing blows head-on. Out of the corner of her eye, she kept watching Arlong’s relaxed posture and the colorful glints of the rest of the crew in the water surrounding them. Close to the cliff but far enough for the captain’s words to be covered from strangers.

“You come here, scare me out of my mind, and accuse me of betrayal. What did you expect?” she said, trying to sound confident, but the tremors left her vulnerable to fear and anxiety.

“I’m not here to argue whether you betrayed me or not. I know you did. Don’t you know that rumors and gossip spread faster than diseases? I came for your stories in prison and found you at a Vice Admiral’s house, fraternizing with him and his grandsons. I like to trust my own, but in the end, you’re nothing but a disgusting human. Betrayal runs in your nature, like it does in all the scum of your race.”

“Look, Arlong, if you want, we can discuss how…”

Nami shut her mouth as soon as Arlong’s cold, scaly hand scratched her neck. As she swallowed, one of his rings grazed her skin, and she felt it burned.

“We’re not discussing anything, darling. You’re going to do what I tell you, with your mouth shut and head down until we leave this damn island, and when we get to Cocoyashi, I’ll remind you what loyalty means. Do you understand?”

The smell of blood and the image of her mother’s eyes burned into her memory flooded her mind, and her chattering teeth prevented her from responding.

Arlong dug one of his claws behind one of her ears, searching for pain.

“I asked if you understood.”

The teenage girl gritted her teeth and nodded as best she could, pinned between the huge hands of that monster.

“Good. That brings me to the next point. I need you to go back to old Garp and steal the map of the Grand Line he has. Along with a few other things I need you to do. Your little attempt at mutiny, in the end, might work in our favor.”

“I didn’t…” she tried again, but Arlong cut her off once more, with the tight expression of someone receiving an insult.

“Do you know what I felt yesterday when I went to free you from the Marine dogs and that damn Vice Admiral Garp declared you were his granddaughter, Nami?”

The girl quickly shook her head, driven by the instinct that made her arms flail when falling into the sea.

“My fins went cold thinking about the warmth of your blood between my claws. My muscles tensed while imagining how they’d contract if I squeezed your neck, the justice of seeing your skin turn red and purple. My ears rang with the screams of your village in my ears, of that fool with the windmill on his cap, of your sweet sister.”

As he spoke, Nami’s body went numb, immobilized by those foreign sensations that snaked inside her through Arlong’s words.

“I’ll do what you ask. You know I will.”

Arlong laughed, his smile full of sharp, pointed teeth.

“Of course you’ll do what I tell you, silly girl. Always remember that you owe me your life until the deal is paid in full.”

The sea vibrated, roaring at their feet, as if Arlong’s orders were caresses on the waves. She felt the cold at her ankles again, chained to that room Nami tried not to think about, yet always found herself returning to.

“Now get up and get to work. That scum is probably waiting for you to have breakfast, and we wouldn’t want to keep that Marine dog waiting, right?”

As he spoke, Arlong grabbed her arms and, from the small rock where he sat, threw her towards the shore. She tumbled through the foam, and although the waves softened the impact, she felt the unpleasant pressure of water gushing into her ears.

“Don’t forget to tell him you fell in the most pathetic way you can think of. And grab the telescope and compass—don’t forget you came to do something, not just fool around with the enemy. You’re good at that, aren’t you, girl?”

Nami, more deafened than usual by the water, didn’t notice the telescope that Chew threw at her from the sea, and the object struck her head unexpectedly. Between the blow and the water-induced imbalance, the teenager ended up on the ground, sore and disoriented.

She didn’t even hear the crew’s laughter. By the time she raised her head, the sea seemed to have swallowed her fears, darker than usual. The sight of the thin sunbeams reflecting on the choppy waves gave her the feeling they were drawing salt bars over the water. Not as a threat, but as a promise.

The promise of that prison high in a tower, full of maps and the weight of chains.

When the fish fought, they lost scales, and at Arlong Park, those pesky little flakes settled in the smallest cracks between the cobblestones. Nami always walked carefully, but it was inevitable some would get stuck in the soles of her shoes, and her feet were always wet.

By the time she got home, her toes were still swimming in the lukewarm seawater, and as she prepared to ring the doorbell, she tried to convince herself it was just another hole in her shoes. Her clothes and hair had dried on the way there, but despite that, the wrinkled fabric and the smell of dead fish told the story of a scuffle at sea that she didn’t feel like telling anyone.

Mustering up a courage that felt fake, Nami raised her knuckles and knocked twice on the door. Before she could knock a third time, the door, rather than opening, vanished with a sigh, and Ace, as pale as milk, appeared before her.

The panic in his expression faded slightly when he found her standing there at the entrance, disheveled and shrunken, but present.

“Where the hell have you been?!”

He shouted, more relieved than angry, but loud enough for her to hear despite the wall of water that plugged her already damaged ears. The boy turned his head to shout something Nami couldn’t quite make out, and the massive figure of Garp appeared from the kitchen, his face tight with concern and anger.

Nami shrank even more, but shook her head and pushed her way into the house while the wall of water that shielded her from outside noise muffled the shouts.

Before she could make it to the stairs without uttering a word, a large hand grabbed her arm. Fear and adrenaline, sudden and cold, made her thrash against the grip so violently she had to grab onto the stair railing to keep from falling.

When she turned to face them, Garp and Ace were watching her with closed mouths and silent stares.

She dropped the damned telescope and compass, which fell to the floor with a strong vibration, and turned her back on them, intent on nothing more than climbing the stairs, closing her eyes, and ceasing to exist.

“I fell into the sea getting that crap. I’m tired.”

No one tried to stop her as she crossed the house in search of the room where she’d spent the night hugging Luffy, surrounded by warmth and hope.

When she removed her boots and collapsed onto the bed with wrinkled feet and a clenched heart, the only things that surrounded her were the cold and the fear.

She lay there for a while, staring at the wall, while the faint light from the door swayed to the gentle rhythm of worry. Amidst the comings and goings of Ace and Garp, sleep began to lull her again, ready to pull her out of the nightmare, and she surrendered willingly to unconsciousness, eager to lose herself in the darkness and never find the way out.

Nami was in the middle of the sea when the waves turned violent. She woke up with the sensation that the breeze was calling her from far away, and with Luffy’s black eyes anchored on her.

The boy’s gaze, filled with anguish and worry, brought her back to reality, and with reality returned the memory of how she had stumbled into the house, only to end up defeated on sheets that now smelled of dead fish. If her goal had been to go unnoticed, she had achieved the exact opposite.

A terrible headache, intensified by the burning pain in her ears, made her groan. Chew had hit her harder than she’d thought, and between the concussion and the fear, she had ended up worrying the people in that house. If her plan was to scam them, she had gotten off on the wrong foot.

“Nami, Nami...” Luffy’s distant voice pulled her to the surface of her stormy sea of thoughts, raging behind the wall of water that isolated her from the outside world. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Where did you go? Ace and Gramps are worried.”

She brought a hand to her ear, trying to break the invisible wall, but ended up touching the ugly bump next to it, left behind after the telescope had knocked her out.

“I went to get some things from my ship and fell into the water. The sea’s really rough today. I think I’ve got water in my ears. It’s hard for me to hear you, and it hurts.”

Luffy’s elastic hand stroked her hair in such an unfamiliar way that she found herself staring at him, unsure of what to say. His attempts to invade her space were usually clumsy and childish, not sweet and careful.

“You’ve left blood everywhere.”

Alarmed, Nami turned her head as fast as she could, but the pain and dizziness intensified, and the scene on the sheets turned crimson.

The earache and her pile of accumulated curses made her collapse onto the bed again. If she didn’t already have an infection, she was close to getting one.

“I hit my head. You would’ve laughed at how hard I smacked it,” Nami said, settling comfortably under the web of lies that sleep had woven around her.

Luffy said something, but to her, it sounded like an incoherent murmur.

The infection was going to be bad. She just prayed the fever would be quick; she was starting to feel warm.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to, but I don’t like it when you lie to me, Nami. We’re friends.”

She shifted her gaze from the wall to him, evaluating him with the lie poised on the tip of her tongue. Her lower lip trembled as the wall where she had hidden everything began to sting inside her.

The boy’s eyes gleamed in the face of her weakness, and she reached out a hand to wrap around Luffy’s wrist, to absorb the warmth she had slept with and that now felt so far away.

“Hug me,” she said. Luffy looked at her, doubt written in the furrow of his brow. “Just for a little while. Like before. Hug me.”

“I think you’ve got a fever. We should tell Gramps.”

She shook her head, cheeks damp, under the relentless pain that enveloped her.

“Hug me, please.”

For a few seconds, the room remained still, filled with thoughts, but the heart won over the head, crammed with beetles and dreams. When Luffy lay down next to her, Nami grabbed hold of his vest, clutching him tightly with all four limbs.

“Nami, I...”

She tightened her grip and drowned the worries and problems in the depths of that embrace.

“No. Just hug me. Just hug me for a moment.”

Luffy’s chest trembled with words on the brink of escaping his mouth.

“Please.”

She didn’t even hear her own plea, but her friend must have, because his limp arms grew firm, and for a few moments, the pieces of a life spent among rags and patches were held together by two sweets rubber arms.

Chapter Text

Since Bell-mère’s death, Nami hadn’t gone to the doctor. She didn’t have the money or the desire to explain herself, and Arlong didn’t like strangers touching his property. Nami usually spent her days feverish, locked up drawing maps. She didn’t get much work done, but at least she was under a roof, and Nojiko couldn’t say anything to her.

She liked the solitude. No one worried about what they couldn’t see. Besides, if anyone did worry about her, it would just show weakness, and weakness was an emotion she couldn’t allow herself.

When she got up around noon, disoriented and with the cold, hard metal pressed against her chest in search of her heartbeat, she knew she’d messed up. Nami squirmed, groaning, to shake off the doctor’s cold fingers and whimpered as she turned her head, feeling the terrible pain in her ears.

The world blurred as she agonized, distorted by her torment. She whined, clutching her ears, trying to tear them off and end the torture. The doctor’s cold hands were replaced by larger, warm, strong ones that held her small hands while gently rubbing her bare shoulder to calm her.

Tears left icy tracks down her fever-flushed cheeks. Someone pressed a hard, freezing object into her right ear, and Nami screamed in pain.

Why did life hate her so much?

Nami wished she didn’t have any obligations and could just stop existing without regrets.

“Is there anything we can give her to…?”

The man’s voice turned surreal through the sweats and haze, and luckily, Nami fell back into darkness.

The strong, sweet smell of camphor, fennel, and peppermint brought her back to consciousness. Her mother brushed the bangs from her forehead as she felt her stir, and a smile escaped her.

“Mom, your hands are so cool.”

A high-pitched laugh seeped through the thick wall separating her from the world.

“I told you, you’ve got girly hands, Ace.”

“Shut up, idiot, can’t you see she doesn’t know what she’s saying?”

The bickering softened until the fog overtook her again, with a smile still lingering on her lips.

When she woke up again, pain was stabbing her eardrums.

“Please…”

Her voice scratched her throat more than it vibrated. Her plea scratched at her insides. Life itself scratched at her.

“Come on, Nami, you’ve got to chew for the pain to go away.”

She groaned, spurred on by that shrill voice sweetening her sick ears.

“Please, it hurts,” she begged again.

Someone gripped her jaw and forced her mouth shut. The girl cried.

“Chew, Nami. You have to chew.”

She sobbed, her cheeks puffed out, hot and sour.

“You’re hurting her. She’s not listening. She’s going to choke,” said a third person.

The hand withdrew from her throat, and Nami gasped for air, gulping it down.

“Crush the herbs in a glass and make her drink them.”

“But…”

“Please, enough already… It hurts,” she cried, increasingly desperate.

The room around her vibrated in a frenzied commotion as the air threatened to kill her, and her heartbeat pounded in her ears.

Someone pressed a cold glass to her lips and forced her to drink a bitter liquid.

When she was done, all she could do was cry.

“Mom.” Her sob made the bitter herbs churn in her stomach.

Someone wiped her mouth and dried the hot cheeks, trying weakly to console her.

“I’m not your mom, Nami, it’s Luffy.”

She sobbed harder. Surrounded by fog, pain, and a heaviness that sank into her muscles, pinning her to that sweat-soaked, illness-ridden bed.

“Mom, please, take me with you.”

The heartbeat in her ears became louder, wrapped in silence.

“No, you’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here, Nami. Do you hear me? You’re staying…!”

The shouting turned into arguing, and she, pulled back into that intermittent sleep that wrapped around her, let herself be taken by unconsciousness again.

“Mom…”

The fog had eased a bit when reality started to pull her back. Despite everything, her body felt heavy, and even thinking about lifting her eyelids was a chore.

She felt pain, but compared to before, it was just an echo of what it had been. A slamming door forced Nami to open her eyes, still heavy with sleep, and for a moment, the sound felt made-up, distant, impossible. The last time she’d woken up, she could barely hear the shouting.

“Nami, Nami! Are you awake?”

The words seemed closer to her, and while there was still a faint barrier muting the world, it was more like the one she was used to than the wall which had trapped her in bed.

“I’m…” The teenager cleared her throat to smooth her vocal cords a bit. “Yes, Luffy, I’m awake.”

“Leave her alone, can’t you see you’re smothering her, idiot?”

Ace’s voice was harder to hear, but at least she understood him, and that brought her great relief.

Nami felt light and feverish, but in a bubble of happiness that lifted her inches above the bedspread. She started laughing, and her laughter floated, colorful, around her. Her ears buzzed, tingling.

“I’ve got ants in my ears,” she laughed.

She brought her hands to her face without any caution, trying to scratch the inner part that wouldn’t stop tickling. She wore an oversized shirt, and the sleeve tangled in the sheets as she rubbed her cheek.

“It’s the medicine, Nami. I haven’t seen an ant in this room in two days. They don’t like the smell of the herbs. But if I see one, I’ll kick it out, don’t worry,” her friend promised solemnly.

She shook her head, getting sleepier, but with the sharp, nagging feeling that Luffy had lied.

“Ants are bad; they crawl into the bed and bite your toes. They eat the mandarins.”

Luffy helped untangle her sleeve from the sheets, and for a moment, she felt his cold fingers on the bare skin of her shoulder. Nami glanced at her arm with curiosity, narrowing her eyes at the dark, jagged lines of Arlong’s tattoo.

“I don’t like it when the brand shows. It’s nasty.”

Silence filled the room until Ace moved closer, pulling the fabric down to cover the black lines again. She sighed with relief.

“It’s late; I have to go work on my maps.” she said as she lay back on the sheets.

Her ears throbbed, and she whimpered a little as she settled into a better position.

“That poppy medicine’s made her fool, Ace, but she’ll get sharp again, right?”

From somewhere distant, Ace’s voice replied, so far that it almost faded beyond the wall.

“Don’t worry, Luffy; even if she doesn’t recover, you’ll still be the dumbest one.”

The storm burst over her, but by the time the first bolt cracked, Nami had already fallen back into sleep, smiling.

Nami found her way back to the real world once more, amidst fever, gasps, and pain. And though the pain was strong, hot, and heavy, it allowed her to think. A heavy hand tapped her stomach with a steady rhythm, and the weight of that hand gave her the strength to open her eyes.

Garp’s gaze met hers as soon as he noticed her movement, and she felt as if she were staring into the eyes of a lizard.

“I thought you were going to die.”

She blinked a couple of times at such a blunt statement while he patted her stomach in the middle of the night.

“I’m still here.”

They both stayed silent for a while, at the foot of her bed. Like cats, Ace and Luffy’s figures purred in the middle of their sleep.

She sat up slightly to watch them better, wincing at the pain in her ears. Garp held her shoulder, making her lie back down.

“If you ever scare me like that again without telling me something’s wrong, I’ll ground you until you’re eighty, and these two monkeys have to come visit you with canes.”

Nami nodded.

“Okay.”

Silence returned, and she watched the ceiling with caution, waiting for the adult to leave and let her endure the fever alone.

“You had ruptured eardrums. The infection nearly killed you.”

She glanced at him briefly before speaking again.

“I was already deaf, Grandpa. My mother found me in the middle of a battle. The war left me deaf.”

Garp kept tapping on the blanket. A warm, restless heat settled at her feet, beside Ace and Luffy, and she realized that if she closed her eyes, she could blank her mind and enjoy the gentle warmth.

“Who did this to you, Nami?”

She looked down at her feet, searching for the source of warmth as the sensation crept up her legs. Garp’s gaze was cold and harsh, but he didn’t stop tapping. There, immersed in that strange warmth, she dared to believe she might be happy.

“No one,” she muttered. “I fell. I docked my ship near a cliff, and since I was planning to leave soon, I forgot my telescope and compass.” The lie flowed so easily from her lips, she’d think it had always been there. “There was a hell of a swell. I wish I hadn’t left the house.”

The old man paused, his hand still against her side, the warmth stopping there. He watched her with an owl’s stare, and Nami held back the urge to swallow nervously, looking back at him with a perfectly innocent smile. She’d watched Luffy closely, studying his expressions until she could perform a perfect imitation.

“You must have left those pirate tricks behind a long time ago, old man. Anyone can see you live like a prince at sea,” she smirked.

Garp let out a hearty laugh that made his grandsons stir, as though they were boiling in their sleep.

“You’re clever as a cat, girl,” he conceded, and there was a note of something else in his eyes that Nami struggled to identify. “But if I find out you lied to me, even if it’s the smallest lie in all four seas, I’ll make you count bricks before I let you out of this house.”

She raised her gaze to the old man, looking at him with the sharpened perception she’d developed over years of silence and thievery. Catching small details had always been her advantage in avoiding abandonment at the bottom of the sea.

“You can hit me, like you hit Luffy. I’m not afraid of getting hurt.”

He shifted uncomfortably but continued tapping out a soft, rhythmic pattern on the blanket, and Nami felt a satisfied smile escape her.

“Every child’s different. Luffy’s got a head like stone. You’re more like paper. I always feel like you’re a breath away from flying off or being torn in two. I don’t think anyone should ever lay a hand on you again.”

She tried to ignore the suggestion buried in his words. Soothed and with the warmth now reaching the back of her neck, the young girl sighed, adjusting to lie on her side. Her ears pulsed with pain from the movement.

“Besides, I’m not lying, old man. You won’t have to do a thing.”

A soft laugh escaped her lips, and the shadows swayed like gentle waves over the high seas. Sleep reclaimed her, cradling her softly, far from nightmares and the open sea.

Chapter Text

Nami woke up with the certainty that betrayal was brewing slowly all around her. The room was tinged with the blue hue of the alkanet flower, the root of the traitor.

When she was little, Nojiko used to leave a trail of strands of hair from the bed to the bathroom, which drove Bell-mère from worry to worry. The doctor who used to check on Nami once a year remarked, between hiccups, that it was probably due to poor nutrition. For two weeks, their mother woke up with swollen eyelids and red eyes as she scoured the village looking for a solution. The solution came in the form of an old remedy: hours spent among trees searching for the bluish flower of the alkanet, which, turned into oil, was capable of soothing the many troubles that plagued Nojiko's hair.

When Bell-mère couldn't attend to her, it was Nami who stained her fingers blue in the daily massages to her sister's head. After weeks of the process, Nojiko's hair decided to stay where it belonged, and Nami's fingers rebelled, permanently dyed the color of that wretched flower. The girl scratched her hands as much as she could, but the blue wouldn't go away, and worries stormed her young mind.

Would her fingers stay blue forever?

What if it spread all over her body?

Would she have to live as a blue person until she died?

"Well," Bell-mère chuckled at her daughter's dramatic concerns, "they also call alkanet the root of the traitor. You've discovered just how treacherous the color can be."

Two years later, with clean hands at last, troubles arrived in the form of blue scales in her life. Blue fins pulled the trigger that killed her mother, and she ventured into the great blue to turn her back on her village in search of money.

The alkanet didn't forget her, not even during the nights she spent on the floor of the map room—cold, hungry, and beaten. When darkness painted terrifying bluish shadows, haunting her on the nights her stomach sang its lament.

Nami was destined for betrayal, but it surprised her to wake up with that feeling in Garp's home. Here, she was supposed to feel safe. She attributed the sensation to her usual fear and focused on something more pressing: once awake, worry, anxiety, and fear returned to life.

She still had a fever, and the room smelled of herbs, but she knew this time she'd stay conscious. The problem was that nothing weighed on her mind, which meant there was enough space for thought.

It was barely dawn, and cold blue shadows played with the black lashes of Luffy, sprawled in a chair he had pulled close to the bed. For a few seconds, anxiety and worry drifted away, distant, in the gentle rhythm of her friend's breathing. His eyelids fluttered in sync with a restless dream, and she wondered if, in his sleep, he was also playing with orange beetles.

When anxiety and that blue sensation from waking up rained back down on her, she rose with smooth, measured movements, careful not to disturb his sleep.

When she placed her feet on the floor, it took her a few moments to regain her sense of balance. It was as if her stability had been shaken in the past few days, leaving her unable to feel solid ground beneath her feet.

Or as if her eardrums had burst from a blow.

Nami sighed and touched her ear, searching for the lost equilibrium, but all she found was pain.

It took her a few minutes to find her footing again. She had to spread her legs slightly to anchor herself better to the floorboards.

When she took a step forward, she tripped over her own feet and had to spread her arms to maintain what little balance remained. She shot a quick glance toward Luffy, relieved to see him roll over in his tangle of limbs on the chair, frowning but still asleep.

She made her way to the door, but halfway there, her attention was caught by a small figure wrapped in an oversized shirt and pants tied at the waist. In the reflection, she saw the terrible blue mark of a jagged nose.

Nami looked at the disheveled, copper-haired figure—small and speckled with greenish and yellowish bruises. It was more a ghost or an apparition than a person. And she felt compelled to ask herself how the girl of mandarins, maps, and blue-stained hands had become that sorrowful shadow.

The tattoo of Arlong's face watched her from her shoulder, always vigilant, reminding her, like a beacon in the open sea, where her loyalty must always lie.

The blue of the morning surrounded her. It was a day for betrayal.

The simple thought—impersonal, cold, calculated—left her trembling before the mirror, her hand on the doorknob, the heart frozen.

The blue ink gripped her arm and whispered in her ear of Arlong's proximity, of those cold fins awaiting a job well done.

She opened the door quickly and stepped into the hallway, determined to leave the thought behind.

Nami focused her empty mind on the grain lines that ran through the wood at her feet. On the light below, casting patterns on the ceiling above the stairs. She placed her hands against the wall to guide herself, and the wrinkles in the paint led her down the hallway.

At that hour, the world slept, too early for innocent souls to be woken by worries.

Under her fingers, the wall wove a story of scratches and fights, anger and joy. She paused to trace the delicate patterns with the fervor of someone finding memories in tiny details.

A blue glimmer reflected on her fingernail, and puzzled, she turned her hand over in a soft caress of the light. It reminded her of the sea, though the floor below was all wood, fabric, and furniture.

She followed the blue patterns, shifting like waves, searching for their source, and the reflections led her eyes between the bars of the railing to an enormous blue figure sitting on the couch.

Still aching and unsteady, she moved closer to the edge and leaned forward. Tears dampened her cheeks before she even realized they were there, as she comprehended the scales.

Scales seated on the couch.

Arlong had come looking for her.

Surrounded by the infernal silence of damaged ears.

The steps burned her bare feet as she crouched, terrified, and the man shifted in the armchair toward the enormous and imposing figure of Garp, who handed him a cup of coffee. The air turned to shards of ice in her chest. Tears soaked her knees.

"I made a mistake, and I'll regret letting him go for the rest of my life, but now isn't the time for remorse. Do you know where he is?"

The voice of that scaled giant was deep, and it slipped uninvited into Nami's broken ears.

"Nami hasn't wanted to name her island. She's a very distrustful child, but it's clear he's here."

The girl furiously rubbed her face. Her cheeks burned. Her throat itched. She forced herself to swallow the urge to scream.

Betrayal embraced her again, like an old friend, and hatred, rage, and resentment strangled her. Soon she wouldn't even be able to breathe.

Her village would die because she was weak.

Weak to any form of love that pretended to sustain her.

"When she wakes up, I'd like to speak with her."

Garp let out a long sigh that churned Nami's stomach.

"Prepare yourself. Arlong is about to kill her. She looks like a shadow."

Her already churning guts flipped, and she tasted bile on her tongue.

They were going to kill her.

Those she had opened her heart to wanted her dead.

With urgency and fear on the tips of her toes, Nami ran toward the bathroom. By the time she reached the door, the walls seemed to be closing in, suffocating her. The surfaces had sharpened against her. The toothbrushes and scissors on the sink aimed their edges at her. The mirror reflected straight, cutting lines, full of slashes and threats. The hard glass reflected desperation and fear.

It reflected her.

Her and a world turned blue.

She opened the toilet lid and vomited what little was left of herself.

She had always known. She knew she shouldn't trust anyone! In the end, betrayal was inherent to all human beings. They were weak and malicious. Savage and inferior. Foolish and manipulative.

Her people had chosen to hate a child instead of fighting for her.

At sea, you had to choose between staining your hands blue or suffering betrayal.

She had long since realized that love was worth nothing when it stood in the way of someone's plans.

Love only caused pain, and she hurt so much…

She choked on her sobs and vomited again. Somehow, she dragged herself to the sink and rinsed her mouth with a little water.

To her deafness, tears added their weight, and the room turned to a haze of indigo and traces of despair. Her nose clogged, blocking her breath and smell. And touch froze her.

The world became a mass of familiar ice and pain.

She should never have trusted anyone, and no one should ever have trusted her.

Nami forced her lungs to constrict, searching for air. Air that froze her throat, raw from days of feverish crying.

Around her, emotions swelled into enormous masses of smoke and mist. Huge and beastly.

The anger at having trusted again when she had taught herself distrust clawed at her.

The fury of having opened a heart she should have kept closed battered her.

Garp's betrayal would kill her. Because she was a fool, inept, useless. She was stupid. Senseless. Despicable. Weak.

She had allowed herself to love again. After her mother's love had bitten her. After her village's love had devoured her whole. After Carina had spat out her first love.

After living an entire life with her hands stained blue.

For a decade, she had bled out on the ground from a thousand wounds inflicted by love.

She had been stabbed so deeply by it that she would die there, alone and shattered, in a frozen bathroom.

She couldn't even die in peace because if she died, her village would die with her. Though apparently, everything was already lost.

Arlong would kill her, and yet, she knew she wouldn't die at his hands but at the hands of love stained with the alkanet.

The mark of Arlong on her shoulder mocked her in the mirror.

Dark and ominous. Full of iron and chains.

Because Arlong was always right.

Arlong had never intended to keep his word.

Arlong…

Arlong.

Arlong.

Arlong.

The sunlight hid behind a cloud. And her life turned blue again.

The pain became more intense. It grew dark and glimmering. Her veins turned black again, chained under the weight of the tattoo, of Arlong's words.

The crushed hope revived the ink. The laughter of the Fishman stabbed her deaf ears.

Nami's teeth chattered as she stood and grabbed the scissors from the sink before the weight of despair drowned her completely.

When the tips of the scissors merged with her pain and tore the skin of her shoulder, instead of fear, she felt relief as dark, nearly black blood flowed.

The second stab followed quickly after the first; her shoulder went numb, and the ink poured out of her.

The third, fourth, fifth… the sixth blow rang metallic against the chains.

At the seventh, the scissors slipped from her bloodied hands, and Arlong's crooked nose laughed at her. The eighth stab split the nose in two.

She clenched her teeth before delivering the ninth, aimed straight at the sharp eye.

Her hand stopped abruptly mid-air, and when she turned to find the culprit, Luffy's black eyes stole the last bit of air left in her lungs.

They were full of worry and fear. Full of love. The kind she fled from. The kind that was bleeding her out on the floor of a stranger's bathroom, surrounded by pain. With sleep still clinging to her hair.

A blue-scaled figure appeared behind him, and Nami couldn't hold back—she crumpled to the ground, terrified, sobbing.

Luffy's touch burned on her wrist. And the slow simmer of the traitor's root finally boiled over.

Chapter Text

Nojiko fell hopelessly in love with the son of one of the fishermen when she turned eleven.  

The boy didn’t pay her any attention, but if he glanced her way, it was because he secretly liked her. If they crossed paths, it was only because he wanted to see her. And if he sneezed, it was because he was slowly dying of love for Nojiko.

The teenager spent her days sighing, her gaze fixed on the window, and Nami, who just wanted to play, found her insufferable. She didn’t understand what was so wonderful about love. Nojiko had become whiny, boring, and overly emotional. It was as if her sister had been replaced overnight with a fool. She made sure to tell Genzo and Bell-mère as much one day while the three of them ate mandarins in the grove.

Why couldn’t her sister see that love was nonsense?

The two adults exchanged a glance over the child’s head, and Genzo cleared his throat, taking the pinwheel off his hat and holding it in front of him.

“Listen, Nami, we all have a little pinwheel inside…”

She huffed. “I don’t have a pinwheel!”

The man stumbled over his words, trying to explain, and Bell-mère chuckled, placing a hand over his. She took over the conversation with ease.

“Love is a beautiful feeling, but it’s also scary, Nami. You take your heart in your hand and give it to someone else. It’s a risk because you’re afraid they won’t want it or that they’ll take advantage of it. That’s why people change so much when they fall in love.”

Nami wrinkled her nose. “Is that why Nojiko cries all the time? What a stupid reason! Why would anyone want to love someone if it makes them that dumb and might hurt them too?”

“Ah, but love is wonderful—if the person you love is good and takes care of your heart. It’s a risk worth taking.”

Nami tossed a piece of mandarin peel onto her knees and shook her head. “Yeah, right…”

This time, Genzo laughed, taking over with more confidence.

“Do you remember the day a sailor brought chocolate to the village? And when you tasted it, you didn’t want to eat anything else?”

The girl nodded.

“When you ate it, you said your tummy felt warm, and your heart was pounding so hard you couldn’t stop rolling on the floor. I remember you even cried to your mom for just one more piece of chocolate.”

She grumbled an affirmation, the ghost of that sweetness lingering on her tongue.

“Well, love is ten times better than chocolate. No, a hundred, two hundred… a thousand times better!”

Nami flopped onto the ground, letting out an even bigger huff, outraged. “Yeah, right! That boy is nothing like chocolate. He picks his nose, and I’m sure he likes his friend, not Nojiko. And now she’s turned dumb over him. Love is stupid!”

“Love is blind, Nami. You don’t get to choose who you fall for. One day, your heart starts racing, and you’re lost. You can’t help but fall.”

Nami witnessed the look her mother gave Genzo. He blushed to his ears, and after that strange moment, Bell-mère turned back to Nami, leaning in to plant a soft kiss on her nose, as light as a butterfly’s touch.

“That’s how I fell for you two. I saw a little sweet baby in a beautiful girl’s arms, both of them with those gorgeous smiles, staring at me with four chocolate-brown eyes, and I knew I couldn’t live without you. My two little chocolate chips.”

“Mom, that’s not love!”

Bell-mère pursed her lips and launched a surprise attack, tickling her mercilessly.

“How dare you, you little rascal? I went blind because of you two!”

Between laughter and playful wrestling, Nami twisted under her mother’s fingers, and the conversation faded among the mandarin trees.

Two months later, Nojiko’s great love got a boyfriend, breaking her sister’s heart. She must have been blind not to see it coming. From that moment, Nami decided it would never happen to her. She might be deaf, but she would never be blind, especially over something as silly as love.

Years later, older and more sorrowful, she met Carina and lost her sight completely. Desperate for a slice of peace and color, she fell for the first person she met far from Arlong Park.

It was as wonderful as chocolate and as tragic as a drama. When Carina abandoned her on an island with no money and left her at the mercy of violence, Nami finally understood what it meant to have a broken heart. The pain in her chest hurt more than the beating she took from the pirates she couldn’t steal from. The day a purple-haired thief stole her first love was the day she swore she’d never taste that chocolate again.

Though the conversation under the mandarins had long been forgotten, her mind conjured it again as she licked her wounds on a distant beach, surrounded by alkanet flowers and a shattered heart.

Two years later, lying on the bathroom floor, drenched in her own blood and the pieces of her broken heart, Nami smelled mandarins again. Under Luffy’s gaze, devoid of its usual smile, she tasted a bittersweet memory.

Unable to meet his eyes, she folded in half and begged. Arlong had taught her to beg and cry with her forehead pressed to the ground, and that’s how she addressed the boy watching her.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

Her hair dampened in the crimson puddle spreading on the floor. The position made her unsteady, and combined with the pain and blood loss, she leaned heavily on Luffy’s grip on her wrist.

“Please… I had to. I’m sorry…”

The sound of Garp’s footsteps approached, heavy and uneven, his massive shadow blocking the light spilling into the hallway. Around her, there was only silence, terror, and cold. Scales and scissors. Blood and desperation.

A storm broke above her, filled with shouts and movement.

“Nami?! What the hell is going…”

Before anyone could approach, Luffy stepped between her and the world, his small back expanding until it was an unyielding wall. His movement commanded silence. His expression was solemn as he knelt, still holding Nami’s bloodied wrist. He looked her in the eye.

She lowered her gaze long before those bittersweet irises could stab her.

“Nami.”

The teenager let the tears fall but refused to sob, her head bowed and her body trembling. The sun, long gone, teased its return between the clouds. The scales of the man in the bathroom doorway glinted in the blood pooling on the floor. Nami twisted her arm slightly to move away from the door, but Luffy’s grip was firm. Despite everything, the strength in his hands didn’t cut into her wrists like chains. His touch was warm.

“Nami,” Luffy repeated.

Garp moved toward her, but his grandson stopped him.

Fueled by a rage more helpless than furious, she tightened her grip on the scissors. A guttural cry escaped her chest. The little blood she had left rushed to her ears and cheeks. The pain in her shoulder dissolved under the ringing in her head.

“Nami.”

The third call finally made her lift her gaze from the scarlet puddle and meet Luffy’s sharp, unyielding eyes.

“What?! What more do you want from me? Do you want money? Take it,” she sobbed.

With difficulty, she raised her free arm, trembling and bloodied, to grab his shirt. Her hand left a red print on the white fabric.

“Do you want my soul? Take it.”

Her sobs doubled her over again.

“What do you want? Food? Maps? Do you want to hit me? Then go ahead, hit me!”

Her voice turned into a shriek despite the tears streaming down her face. Ace, looming over her, took a step forward, a gesture difficult to interpret amidst all the desperation.

“If you want my life, take it! But don’t sell me back to Arlong. Don’t tell him, please.” She sobbed. “My village doesn’t deserve to die because of me.”

The fishman swayed at the door, and a guttural growl escaped her, tangled with her sobs.

“Please… Please…”

Luffy tightened his grip on her wrist for a moment, his fiery black eyes dimming, turning into dull charcoal.

Garp and Ace stepped away from her, the horror implicit in their movements.

"Jinbe is a friend of Grandpa’s, Nami. He’s not here for you."

Something twisted inside her — hope, hunger, or fear. But she quickly shook her head, sobbing.

"No, that’s a lie. He’s already here. You called him. I shouldn’t have told you anything… It’s my fault… I’m so sorry." Dazed, wracked with pain, and still held by Luffy, she crawled toward the door, toward the fishman. "I won’t do it again," she sobbed.

In an attempt to grab the fishman’s kimono, she reached out with the hand that had clung to her friend, but between her dizziness and the blood loss, she stumbled and collapsed at his feet.

"Please, don’t do it. Kill me, not them."

Luffy slammed his fist into the ground as he knelt beside her. The scissors fell from her hand when he let go of her wrist, and she buried her face in her hands. Luffy grabbed her by the forearms, trying to straighten her up, but she refused to move, unable to breathe, unable to live.

"Nami, listen."

She writhed under his grip, her gaze locked on the red tiles of the bathroom. She was going to drown in all that blood. She was going to—

Luffy’s eyes appeared in front of her. His neck, stretched like a snake’s, surrounded her to catch her attention. Despite the seriousness, the blood, and the fear, Luffy’s eyes were once again dark, sweet pools.

"Did you know beetles smell with their antennas?"

She said nothing, but the sheer absurdity of that random fact managed to make her take a breath. Another sob escaped her, clinging to the beetles’ antennas like a lifeline.

"And there are worms that glow like lightbulbs. Ace ate one last summer."

Above their heads, Ace let out a small sound that helped Nami catch her breath. Tears continued streaming down her cheeks, but the corners of her mouth trembled. Luffy smiled.

"We waited two weeks to see if the worm would make his poop glow, but it never did."

That time, Ace swore at his brother, and Nami laughed. The laugh burst out bubbling and shrill, but it was enough to lighten the crushing weight pressing her into the floor.

As the fight for survival eased its grip, pain quickly replaced it, and a groan escaped through her teeth. Luffy’s smile faltered, and this time, Nami sought his hands.

"Why?" The question slipped from her lips without warning, hollow.

The coldness in her voice settled deep in her bones as Luffy’s expression turned to one of doubt, the fishman’s piercing gaze heavy on the back of her neck.

Above her, Garp’s deep, gravelly voice cut through the tension like a knife.

"‘Why’ what?"

Her teeth chattered, and she knew she couldn’t voice the question gnawing at her soul. She couldn’t ask why she would never be worth saving. It wasn’t worth giving form to that doubt. Instead, she breathed, closed her eyes, and forced herself to organize the swirling thoughts around her.

It was clear Arlong had come for her, but he had spoken of betrayal and ordered her to steal from Garp. Garp, who now stood there with Arlong’s fishman, seemingly trying to kill her. But Arlong had ordered her to steal from him. Why would he have given that order if they were working together?

Unless... What were his exact words back in the parlor?

The memory made her dizzy, and she opened her eyes to avoid losing consciousness.

Luffy squeezed her arms. The pool of blood rippled as Nami exhaled and sought reassurance in the dark eyes staring back at her.

"Are you going to help me?"

The boy waited in silence, and she knew without a doubt what he was asking for with his gaze.

"Luffy, help me."

It was a short phrase, barely two words spoken poorly. But after a lifetime of jealously guarding her problems as her own, it cost her an entire world to say those sweet syllables.

The boy released the tension in his body like a coiled spring and pulled her into a hug. Tightly wrapped in his arms, she once again tasted that dark, delicious sweetness.

The memory of chocolate, the one she had vowed years ago to forget beneath the shadow of the tangerine trees, made her sigh as she buried her nose in Luffy’s shoulder.

"Of course I’ll help you, Nami."

Chapter Text

On stormy days, when the first lightning struck, Nami always closed her eyes to savor the shiver that thunder sent through her, one of the few sounds she not only felt but could actually hear. She had admired storms since she was little. Her mother used to tell her that, when Nami closed her eyes at just a year and a half old, Nojiko would start crying, knowing that even if the sky was clear, lightning would soon come, something her sister loved so much.

For years, Nami thought that was the blindness her mother spoke of when she explained love. Whenever Bellemere introduced her to new people, she’d say:

“Nami loves to draw and is hopelessly in love with storms.”

And though mothers sometimes exaggerated their children’s virtues, giving them grandeur where there was only a tiny spark, Nami knew Bellemere spoke the truth.

She was born in love with storms.

When she curled up in Luffy’s arms, with the taste of chocolate on her tongue, she closed her eyes tightly, knowing the storm had arrived, awaiting the thunder.

On the other side of the window, the sun made a feeble attempt to return, and with it, the world stirred again.

Ace, who had remained silent, waiting for his brother to speak, quickly leaned over them and gently brushed his hand through Nami’s hair, inspecting her from head to toe. Although he usually cracked jokes to lighten serious moments, his dark eyes were shining when they locked onto hers, now open but still unfocused. The corners of his eyes were red, and his forehead creased with deep worry.

“Never…” he began fiercely.

Nami averted her gaze, unable to bear the disappointment she thought she saw in Ace. Sometimes, when she looked at him, she felt like she was staring into a mirror. But Ace placed a firm hand on her cheek and forced her to face him.

In the depths of his black eyes, she saw herself again—uncertain, small, and aching.

“Listen to me,” Ace demanded, his tone leaving no room for defiance. “We will never betray you. Doubt anything else—whether Luffy takes showers, whether he stole your food. Doubt whether I killed a king or pooped gold. But never doubt us. Never. Got it?”

She stared at him for one, two, three seconds, then nodded so faintly it seemed unreal. But Ace exhaled in relief. The doubt was still there, as he suspected it always would be, yet it felt smaller in that moment.

Nami opened her mouth, and beyond Ace, she caught sight of the fish-man, watching her closely, as if ready to react to her every word.

“I feel dizzy. I think I’m going to throw up.”

The phrase wasn’t her most eloquent, perhaps her most honest, but it was the greatest act of trust she had ever shown. Voluntarily admitting physical weakness in front of someone was practically a death sentence at sea.

Her thoughts dissolved as she bent over the toilet, the world spinning like a summer typhoon. Full of wind and cold, yet surrounded by warmth.

There was a loud knock at the door early in the morning. Lying on her side on the sofa to avoid putting pressure on her injured shoulder, Nami had the distinct feeling that whoever was outside wasn’t planning on leaving the house standing. Her mind immediately went back to Arlong, but what greeted Garp on the other side was the fury of the Marines.

“Vice Admiral, your grandsons…”

The old man squared his shoulders, blocking the doorway like a wall, and Luffy, sitting at the foot of the sofa, shuddered.

“I’ve said it a thousand times. My grandsons aren’t giving any statements until they’ve recovered. Got it?!”

“But, sir, we have orders…”

Garp took one step—just one—toward the Marines, and they fell silent.

“You tortured my grandson on mere suspicions, so now your orders can wait until the boy is well.”

“The thief…”

“She’s still as sick as she’s been these past four days you’ve been squawking like parrots! Now scram!”

Garp slammed the door shut with a bang that felt like an unfinished sentence to Nami. Despite the rage and force in his voice, as he turned back, he ran a hand through his hair and let out a heavy sigh.

“I won’t be able to hold them off much longer. Sengoku’s starting to stir things up over the king’s death and all the mentions of Arlong.”

Jimbe, the blue-scaled man who kept Nami from falling asleep, placed a reassuring hand on the old man’s shoulder but withdrew it as soon as he caught the alarmed look in Nami’s eyes. Every move he made was carefully measured under her watchful, anxious gaze.

“Today, I’ll inform them that I’m taking over the Arlong matter, and we’ll see what to do about the king.”

“If it’s all so…”

Nami interrupted with a sharp cough. Since her mother’s death, she had lost the childhood fear of interrupting adult conversations.

“Who are you, fish-man? You keep saying you’ll deal with Arlong, but all I see is another one of his kind.”

Garp choked, but the fish-man stepped between him and the girl before he could scold her.

“She’s right. We’re both fish-men and belonged to the same pirate crew. Arlong is my brother.”

Luffy’s eyes sparkled at the word “pirates,” but the full implications of the statement made him hesitate before bombarding Jimbe with questions. Garp, on the other hand, glared at Nami, reproach clear in his expression.

“So you’re another filthy, heartless fish-man.”

“Nami!” her grandfather scolded.

The blue giant raised a hand, silently signaling for calm. He stepped forward, the house trembling with the motion, and Nami shrank back. She clutched the blanket Ace had draped over her legs, and when the boy tapped her foot to signal she’d gone too far, she kicked him away, seething.

“Nami, you have every right to grab a knife and kill me, but I can’t let you insult my race.”

She laughed, bitter and sharp with fear. Luffy tried to reach for her, but any touch felt like fire, and she pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

“Why don’t I have the right to insult your pack of fish-men, Jimbe?” she spat his name as if it were venom, and her friend turned to scold her for her tone as well. “Why are you superior? Is that it? Do you also enjoy the sound of human bones cracking? Like they’re… what was it? Toothpicks? How do you use that superhuman strength of yours? Do you prefer breaking necks or blasting heads off with a spit? Are you more like Kuroobi or Chew? Or are you the type who takes pride in leaving hand-shaped bruises beneath clothes, just like your dear brother Arlong?”

Nami took advantage of the tense silence in the room, charged with the energy of a storm, to sink even deeper into the corner of the sofa.

“I could never take pride in belonging to a race that kills for pleasure and uses its strength solely to see the weak crushed beneath them. What kind of pride is there in that? You disgust me, and…”

The blue-skinned man’s face paled until it nearly disappeared beneath the vibrant hues of his kimono. He collapsed into one of the chairs at the dining table, his large hand partially covering his face.

“A race enslaved, turned into slavers…” he murmured.

Nami inhaled sharply, her anger swelling, ready to lash out with more accusations against that so-called “superior” race. But Luffy stood up and faced her, his expression serious.

“There are bad humans too, Nami,” he said firmly. “The mountain bandits were bad, but Dadan is fair, and she loves us even though we’re kids and not bandits. You always say all pirates are bad, but Shanks is good. And I don’t like the Marines, but there’s Grandpa.” He frowned as he processed his own words, then added, “Well, Grandpa’s… different.”

“Childish dreams are fine, but you have to learn to…”

Ace silenced her by placing a hand on her leg, and Nami fell quiet, though the spark of resentment still smoldered in her chest.

“My father was a bad man, Nami,” Ace said softly. She turned toward him with the speed of a snake, ready to counter with the same intensity, but he continued. “I shouldn’t have even been born. So every day, I try to find the reason why I was. I’ve spent my whole life living in his shadow.”

Her hands clenched the blanket, searching for his, and when she found them, Ace’s long, cold fingers intertwined with hers, steadying her unrest.

“Shadows are heavy and vast. Living under one is the worst burden—I know. But we’re different people, and I’m sure Jimbe and Arlong are different too. If Grandpa brought him here, it’s for a reason. The only thing the old man wants now is to destroy the man who’s tortured you all these years. Just like Luffy. Just like me.”

She wanted to reject his words, to shut her eyes and give in to the hatred. It was an easy path, one she had tread many times before.

But instead of closing her eyes, she turned her head, and Luffy’s gaze caught her like lightning in the middle of a storm. Ace’s hands enveloped hers, anchoring her amidst the tempest.

“Please, Nami,” Ace pleaded. “Let’s just hear him out, okay?”

She exhaled and extended a small, trembling hand toward Luffy, surrendering to the weakness that told her, for once, she could let herself lean on someone else. Someone with long, flexible fingers and warm skin, like summer rain. Burning and soothing, clean and vibrant, never still.

“You’re a damned storm.”

Luffy laughed, and she closed her eyes to savor the sound of the thunder.

Chapter Text

Sometimes, people broke. Nami had seen it for the first time as a child, in one of the villagers.

Tisha and Roman had a small garden, making a living by selling their vegetables to the rest of the village. Nami often saw the woman walking back home, her basket full of whatever was in season, while she kept an eye on the tangerine trees. Then, one day, Tisha collapsed to the ground alongside the carrots and never got back up. Sudden deaths weren’t uncommon in the village—it was a natural consequence when there was no money for a doctor.

When Tisha died, Roman became a shadow of himself. He staggered through the village for two months, a bottle always in hand, wrapped in grief, until one day, he simply stopped. They found him hanging inside the shack he used to call home.

When Nojiko asked, Genzo told them—his gaze lost on the horizon—that sometimes, when people suffered, they fell. And some never got back up, because they lost their happiness. And once you shattered into pieces, it was almost impossible to put yourself back together.

So, for Nami, it became an undeniable truth: people broke.

Over the years, it stopped surprising her. Arlong was good at breaking people.

She first suspected she was broken too on a Friday afternoon, soaked in her mother’s blood, while a fish-man pressed a needle loaded with ink into her shoulder. Because even though the pain burned through her skin, she couldn’t feel it inside.

She kept sailing for Nojiko, for Genzo, for her village. Because the hundred thousand was drawing closer, little by little. But at night, when she lay in bed in the map room, an awful feeling crept over her—that she had lost happiness. And she would never find it again.

While the adults argued in the kitchen, Ace and Luffy were playing a nonsensical board game, using it as an excuse to throw cards at each other like projectiles. Luffy’s kept missing, while his brother tried to lodge his in his forehead.

“You’re cheating, Ace! You can’t blow on my cards—I see you!”

Ace managed to stick a card in his hair before speaking.

“I don’t even need to blow. You just suck at this.”

Luffy jumped to his feet, outraged, and three cards slid off his shoulders.

“Take that back, cheater!”

Ace stood up too, facing him with the kind of smugness that only made his brother angrier.

“Who are you calling a cheater?”

“You—!”

“Why are you two always like this?” Nami interrupted them, having been watching for a while now.

The brothers paused their argument to look at her, confusion written all over their faces.

“Like what?” Ace asked.

She gestured toward them.

“Like… I don’t know how to describe it. Like the world doesn’t matter. Like you’re… happy. Always.”

The boys exchanged glances, searching for answers in each other’s expressions but finding the same confusion staring back.

Ace scratched the back of his neck, trying to put his thoughts into words.

“Well, no. We’re not always happy. There are sad times, and times when we get mad. There have been whole weeks where one day we fight, and the next we—”

She waved his words away with a quick flick of her hand, trying to dispel the fog that had settled between them.

“Everything around you is bright.”

Ace, even more confused, scratched his shoulder, while Luffy furrowed his brow, trying to understand.

“Your home, with all the drawings, the mess, and the sunlight. The way you two are together. Makino, Dadan, your grandpa… Even your ridiculous fights. It’s all so bright. So… happy.”

Ace finally seemed to grasp what she was saying, and sadness darkened the bruises on his face.

“You’re not happy, Nami?”

She raised her eyebrows and straightened up in her corner of the couch. The blanket slipped from her shoulders onto her lap with the urgency of the movement, alarmed by his conclusion. But when she opened her mouth to answer, no words came out. A horrible twist settled in her stomach as she swallowed the silence, sickened by such an ugly truth.

Luffy plopped down in front of her on the couch, interrupting her thoughts before they could spiral out of control.

Her thoughts reshaped themselves, and she released them all at once as the taste of chocolate settled on her tongue, her nerves tingling where his skin met hers.

“Sometimes, I think I’m broken. And it scares me. Maybe I just can’t be happy anymore. Or maybe… after everything I’ve done, I don’t deserve to be happy.”

The air in the room grew heavy, electrified by her words. The charge broke when, without warning, Ace’s arms wrapped around her, and suddenly, she found herself with her nose buried in his vest.

Nami tried to pull back to look at him, but his hands kept her where she was, tense and unsure of what to do, feeling vulnerable under the weight of such a deeply personal confession.

“You make us happy, Nami. At home, when you get mad. Even eating your awful lentils makes me happy. Your stories about cow-fish make me happy…”

Across from them, Luffy laughed, and she felt him wrap his arms around them both.

“Yeah, Nami! Your orange hair makes me happy!”

She shook her head, and Ace’s vest grew suspiciously damp beneath her cheeks.

“But I don’t—”

“And I’m sure you can be happy here. Running on the beach. Drawing. You can be happy even out in the world, with my idiot brother. You make the people around you happy—of course, you deserve happiness. You’re strong and brave…”

She shook her head more forcefully.

“Let me finish, Nami! You’re good, smart, stubborn, and strong, Nami. My whole life, I believed I was born a devil, and ever since you told us about Arlong, your mother, the village—everything—I think you feel like a devil too.”

She nodded, her face buried in his shoulder, unable to do anything else.

“But I’ve been thinking, and I don’t see you as a devil. I see a girl who was forced to do bad things by a horrible man.”

“You’re not bad, Ace. You’re not a devil.”

“And neither are you. We were born surrounded by people who wanted to turn us into devils. But in the end, we were just kids.”

Nami sobbed, and Luffy’s arms wrapped even tighter around them both.

“We all deserve to be happy. Grandpa, Luffy, you” Ace took a deep breath, and his voice wavered “and me too.”

“But I don’t know how to be happy anymore!”

The anguish ate her up inside, convinced no one could understand what she was feeling.

Ace playfully tugged her hair. Nami let out a shaky breath and gave him a light shove on the shoulder.

“You’re an idiot. I’ve seen you play in the sand with us, I’ve seen you at the table when we eat together. Of course you know how to be happy. You’re just stubborn and too busy blaming yourself to see it.”

The conversation had been so heavy that when Luffy suddenly leaped off the couch and pulled them both onto the floor, they stumbled under the weight.

“Let’s play beetles!”

Once they untangled themselves from the hug, Luffy forced them to stretch out their arms and spin in circles around the room. Ace opened his mouth to protest but had to swallow his words when his brother crashed into him and sent him rolling onto the floor.

“A weak beetle is useless in the jungle!”

Fuming, Ace rolled to the side and hooked his ankle around Luffy’s, bringing him down.

“Hey, cheater! You can only use your horns!”

“You headbutted me, dumbass!”

Nami, watching from a short distance, felt a tickle in her throat. And despite the pain and worries, her cheeks ached from laughing.

With mischief in his eyes, Luffy stretched his arm, grabbed her, and yanked her onto Ace. She landed on his good arm and tumbled onto the floor between them, still laughing.

From above, Luffy and Ace grinned down at her.

“See, Nami?” Luffy said, jumping on top of them both. “You just have to stop being a worm… and be a beetle.”

Tears welled up again as she stared at the ceiling, with Ace and Luffy’s heads resting on her. But this time, there was no doubt, no anger, no sadness—only the overwhelming and terrifying realization that, somehow, she had trapped herself in sorrow. And yet, in some inexplicable way, those two idiots had chosen to believe in her.

Because, somehow, she deserved to be happy too.

Chapter Text

Arlong didn’t believe in gods as faithfully as he believed in deals. A god, distant from living beings, seated upon a cold throne, could cast anyone into misfortune for the sheer pleasure of watching them suffer. But a deal couldn't be broken without consequences. Nami knew Arlong must have seen the cold stare of a god when chains and whips left marks on his skin—she imagined that was why he had subdued her through an agreement rather than by the sheer superiority he always boasted about.

A deal was always fair—both parties got something in return, and no one left empty-handed. Money and necessity were perfect tools for negotiation.

So Nami learned to appreciate deals just as she learned to fear them. A raised hand always demanded something in return.

She was used to stealing to avoid getting into any kind of deal, but lately, she’d grown too greedy and only knew how to ask and ask. It was one of those little things she hated about herself, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t stop. She had grown poor in love and begged for any sweet gesture tossed at her feet. The worst part was that the family who had taken her in was willing to give it freely, expecting nothing in return. That was a constant source of frustration—because she never knew when they would pull their hand away. With deals, it was easy to tell: once the terms were fulfilled, the paper burned as if there had never been opposing wills between the two parties.

Luffy and Ace never asked for anything in return. They were greedy by nature—Luffy didn’t offer any food that fell into his hands, Ace stole other people’s blankets and chased anything that caught his interest for more than two seconds—but it was never anything that hurt someone to give. They didn’t extend hands to strike deals in exchange for peace. They offered love as if there was never a price to pay for it. With them, love seemed simple—not a matter of tricks and trades.

The problem with love is that it led people to act without deals. Nami had spent her whole life protecting her village out of love and hope. Hope that one day, the people she cared about would be free, even if it cost her own freedom.

So the day she realized she loved the small and strange family that had adopted a thief on a windmill-covered island, she knew there was no deal that could ever make her give up on them.

When Garp’s voice came from behind the closed kitchen door, Nami knew it was time to act. Weakness electrified her legs and clung to her heart like a sickness. She couldn’t afford any more vulnerability—not while her village was still under Arlong’s fins and especially not knowing he wouldn’t leave the island without Nami betraying the old marine.

Luffy was the first to burst into the kitchen, so when she stepped in, feet firmly planted on the tiles, she found him hanging from Garp’s arm, who kept him at a safe distance from the tray of meat waiting on the table.

Jimbei watched her carefully from a corner of the room, crouched against the wall as if trying to melt into it.

Nami took a step. Then two.

Three.

Before she could open her mouth, Ace interrupted, climbing onto a chair.

“No.”

She furrowed her brow, confused.

“What?”

The teenager shrugged and reached for a chicken thigh from the meat piled on the tray.

“You were about to say something extremely sad followed by some justification about how it would be best for everyone if you sacrificed yourself to that fish slaver. So I’m answering before you say something stupid: No. You’re not sacrificing yourself.”

The two adults looked at each other across the table, and with the distraction, Luffy finally managed to grab two large chunks of meat and devour them like a goose.

Nami shifted uncomfortably, irritated.

“It’s not stupid. Stupid would be staying with you only to have him come and kill you all.”

The boy laughed with his mouth full, but this time, Garp stepped in.

“Children shouldn’t have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their family. They should be children.”

She huffed and stood her ground, though her stomach growled at the sight of the feast.

“I’m not a child, and I won’t—”

A loud knock on the door cut her off. Garp moved from the counter with grace and lifted her by the collar of her shirt, setting her directly on the table next to the meat. Her arm burned under the pressure as her eyes met the old man’s.

“Eat and stop thinking. For someone so smart, you’re awfully stubborn, girl.”

Nami would have shouted at him if Luffy hadn’t taken the opportunity to stuff bread into her mouth. As Garp walked toward the front door, he left the three of them with the fish-man. Nami chewed, her eyes never leaving the adult, rigid as a board.

She choked on the crumbs when she heard the metallic sound of armor and the violent stomping of boots. Garp growled something that to Nami sounded like pain.

“By order of the king and his majesty’s army, we demand the surrender of the prisoners! The new king has ordered the trial of the thief cat!”

The thief cat. Before even the possible murderer of the former king.

Arlong was breathing down her neck.

In the kitchen, even the last fork tensed.

“You have no authority to—”

No one knew what authority was missing, because a storm of blows interrupted the exchange. Ace made to get up and go to Garp’s rescue. Luffy swallowed hard and choked before even getting off the chair. But Jimbei, who was not only a giant but seemed to have some survival instinct hidden under his scales, grabbed both of them by the neck and shoved them toward the window.

“No, the old man’s—”

The fish-man ignored Ace and, for the first time since Nami had tried to scrub the mark from her shoulder, looked her in the eye. She was completely still, back arched, feet light and ready to run. Even so, a knot in her heart anchored her to the white-tiled floor, ears straining to catch the sounds of the fight in the other room.

“Nami, come on, you need to get out. Take them and find shelter,” the fish-man’s black eyes were as cold as the ocean.

She still wasn’t sure whether to trust him or not, whether believing in a scaled being so much like Arlong was worth it. It wasn’t fair to make her choose between belief and disbelief when she’d been an atheist of fish-men her whole life.

But there was no time left, and the fight sounded closer. So Nami forced herself to lean on cold logic to quiet the burning doubt. Her feet, already lightened, flew toward Ace and Luffy. Their hands were clenched, solid as iron. She turned her fingers into pincers.

“Get as far away from here as possible. Find a safe place and wait hidden.”

The fish-man’s eyes dropped to the meat. She nodded and began to pull.

“I’m not leaving without Grandpa!”

“I can fight, I’m not a coward!” Ace shouted.

Their voices rose in protest—agonized, helpless, and furious.

Nami was used to dealing with idiots, so she applied the proper strategy for the moment: the truth.

“Arlong wants to use me to kill Garp.”

The confession snapped three pairs of eyes to her.

“The soldiers came looking for me, not Ace, the one who supposedly killed the king—me. So if they catch me, they’ll hand me over to him, and I’m not going back. I won’t be a witness to whatever he does to my people once he finds out what I’ve done. And as you both know, I know how to use a knife.”

Ace and Luffy froze almost immediately. Ace stiffened, but on Luffy’s face—always more transparent with his emotions—panic appeared. Wide eyes, pupils contracting, brows threatening to merge with his nose. The terror of someone who loved and feared loss.

His hand gripped hers in a mix of fear and anger. Luffy wasn’t particularly smart, so he stayed quiet, waiting for someone to tell him how to keep Nami alive now that he was holding on to her.

Ace snapped out of it as fast as he’d fallen in. He grabbed them both by the wrists and pulled toward the window. Nami’s shoulder ached, but she pretended not to feel it.

“Jimbei,” the boy said, though his feet were already flying, his body refused to move on—his breath was heavy with adrenaline. “Swear to me you’ll get the old man out of there.”

Jimbei closed his mouth, and the fear-hardened expression seemed to soften—if that was even possible beneath such cruel scales. Nami had the strange feeling Jimbei was seeing someone else where the teenager stood.

“Swear it!”

“I swear. Promise me you’ll take care of them. I couldn’t live with myself if Arlong led anyone else to their death.”

The boy nodded.

“I promise.”

And as if a vow and a promise had always meant the same, the two groups split toward different destinies.

It wasn’t until the wooden frame of the window dug into her legs that she dared look back. At the large, round body of the fish-man. Beneath his feet, the footsteps rang like a marching band, as if freedom could sound to the beat of drums.

With her mind focused on escape and the clarity born from pain in her arm, Nami wondered how easy it would be to trust him. A fish-man.

Her thoughts were cut short when Luffy’s arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her out the window.

Not long ago, she wouldn’t have dreamed of such madness. But not long ago, she also didn’t remember the taste of chocolate—and, as impossible as it seemed, she had tasted it again, held in elastic arms.

The impossible seemed tangible next to Luffy.

What a strange feeling it was, to dream of loving.

With no deals, no expectations in return.

And in the end, how difficult it was, to learn to love and be loved.

Chapter Text

There was a rule in Arlong Park that always had to be followed: if you screwed up, you paid.

It was a harsh and simple rule, but sometimes it was hard to follow. Hachi had lost track of the governor's family from a northern island, and the lady had ended up burning her fortune, so Arlong, still with blood on his hands, cut off one of his tentacles. Simple and effective.

During her early sailing years in East Blue, Nami had suffered a shipwreck after a terrible storm and had lost three freshly drawn maps. Chew held her head underwater until she vomited in the pool. Her nose burned for four days. Harsh and simple.

Most of the time, life was a game of cards. Except instead of bankruptcy, the cost was beatings.

Those who played their cards right didn’t have to face punishment, and Arlong, used to avoiding them, had no idea what losing felt like.

As the three of them ran through the forest, heading toward Dadan, Nami found herself thinking about those rules, burned into her memory.

The idea that her family—old or new—might suffer the consequences of someone else’s cruelty took her breath away. Lost in those thoughts, she snapped out of it only when the first branches brushed against her wounded arm. Nami stumbled and had to stop, panting from both physical and emotional pain.

Ahead of her, Luffy and Ace didn’t notice they had left her behind for a while.

Trying to breathe through her nose and out her mouth, Nami looked down and focused on not throwing up her breakfast. Her eyes locked on the ground—on a crown half-buried in the grass and the imprint of royal soldiers’ boots.

Next to them, the wide marks of a pair of sandals had crushed a dandelion.

Another sign of a deal between Arlong and the new king.

A deal for…

"Nami, come on! We have to get help!"

She jerked her head up like a whip and covered her mouth to stifle a scream.

"I got it, Luffy, I got it!"

Her friend stuck a finger up his nose in confusion. She threw her head back and laughed.

She’d been so naïve, so foolish… So buried in her pain she had lost her grip on reason.

The laughter twisted her insides and brought tears to her eyes.

"Is she going crazy?" she heard Ace pant.

She laughed even harder.

"I think she swallowed a bug" Luffy said.

"A bug makes her laugh?" Ace raised an eyebrow, watching her like laughter was some kind of infection.

"Of course! If it tickles inside, you have to laugh!" Luffy scratched his ear with the same finger he had just used for his nose.

"I didn’t swallow a bug, idiots." Nami wiped her tears with a wrist covered in dried blood and dirt. "Do you know what this means?" she pointed at the tracks. The boys shook their heads.

"It means Arlong struck a good deal. This time, he’s teamed up with the damn king of some damn island to screw us all. But I don’t care. I know him. I know what he wants. And I’ve got him by the gills."

Nami fell silent. Her laughter died slowly, like a candle in the wind. Her chest still buzzed, but now it was an empty, slow vibration. The sad echo of a drum with no skin.

The two brothers watched as her determination took shape in the shadow of the forest, between doubt and tremors.

"I’m scared," she finally said. Her voice wasn’t weak, but it was soft, like a secret trying to sink. "I don’t want to fall into his hands again. I don’t want him to catch me again. I don’t want him to hurt you because of me. But I don’t want to give up either. I’m tired of bowing to him, tired of crying and suffering. I’m just so tired of everything…"

Ace and Luffy looked at each other, and for once, neither cracked a dumb joke.

"He won’t," said Ace, full of the same steady confidence he always wore. "I promise. Arlong will never lay a finger on you again. That’s why we’re here, Nami."

"Yeah! And if I have to kick him out of your village, I will!" Luffy raised his fist into the air, as if that simple gesture could take down an army of fish-men.

And though Nami knew it was impossible—that human fury did little to scaled men—that raised fist became a symbol of her fury and desperation.

Because Arlong had been screwing up for too long. And eventually, he had to pay for it.

With that thought in mind, the three of them walked through the forest with firmer steps. Sunlight filtered through the branches, painting the ground in golden patches. The silence was thick, dense, as if the trees held their breath while they passed.

By the time they reached Dadan’s cabin, the hair on Nami’s neck was standing on end.

The woman stood waiting at the door, newspaper rolled in hand and a grim expression on her face.

Few things scared Nami as much as Arlong. But Dadan, frowning with a newspaper in hand, came close.

"It’s about time," the woman growled, eyeing them like runaway kids who forgot their coats. "Get in before more than a scolding falls on your heads."

The three of them obeyed without making eye contact, clearly intimidated. Inside, the cabin smelled like stale coffee, stale sweat, and tobacco smoke. A stove crackled in the corner, and Makino stirred something in a bowl with a tense expression. She said nothing, but offered a warm glance. The only warm glance in the room.

Dadan slapped the newspaper onto the table with a sharp thud.

"Do you know who’s playing king in Goa?"

Ace pressed his lips together and squared his shoulders. Nami grabbed the paper, and Luffy wandered over to Makino with pleading eyes, already hungry again.

"Who’s Cherry?" the boy asked.

"Sterry?" she whispered, reading the headline.

‘Unexpected Coronation: Sterry Pompadour, son of Outlook III and protégé of the Royal Council, proclaimed new King by the Court.’

In the photo, a smug young man with bowl-cut orange hair smiled from a palace balcony. Ace growled.

"I knew it, I knew he looked familiar," he muttered.

Dadan lit a cigarette, watching her adoptive son from the corner of her eye.

"Makino and I are sure he was involved in the old king’s death."

Ace tensed, and Nami took in the bruises shading his arms and sharpening his figure. She saw the way ideas took shape between his frown lines.

"I knew it," he said finally, jaw tight. "I heard something in the woods, right before I got arrested. Those useless thugs we ran into were working for Sterry."

Luffy, mouth full of something in sauce, let out a grunt.

"Why would Curry want them to blame Ace for something he did?"

Ace grabbed him by the vest and pulled him close, face full of threat.

"Sterry, Luffy. Sabo’s goddamn brother."

The boy froze, and his pupils shrank to slits.

Nami shivered from the sudden surge of sparks in the air. Luffy barely breathed.

"I don’t know who the hell Sterry is or why he matters, but if Arlong’s involved, I’m going to be the bait," she said firmly.

Everyone turned to her. The tension shifted.

"What did you say?" Dadan asked.

"I’m going to the palace," Nami repeated. "I’m offering myself as bait. I’ll pretend to give up. Walk through the front door with my head high. They want to catch me, right? Fine. Let them try."

"Are you crazy?!" Luffy yelled, eyes wide.

"No way!" Ace slammed the table. The newspaper hit the floor. "It’s too dangerous!"

"I don’t want anyone else to risk themselves for me," she said calmly. "This is something I have to do. But," she raised her voice when Dadan and Ace tried to protest, "I’m not stupid. I won’t go alone. We’ll plan it carefully. With Jinbe. With the old man. If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it right."

The silence thickened. Luffy looked her over, and to Nami’s surprise, nodded. Ace clenched his fists like he could crush the idea in his hands.

"And what if they really catch you?" he whispered.

"Then you’ll have to come get me," she replied with a half-smile. "Too bad for you—I trust you."

Dadan let out a rough laugh.

"Damn brat... you’ve got guts."

Makino put the bowl down on the table.

"Isn’t it too dangerous?"

Nami shrugged. The decision had planted itself in her chest like a stake, scratching her heart—but she preferred that pain to the one that came from running.

"We need Jinbe," she admitted quietly.

Saying that hurt, chewed up by fear and the unease of asking a fish-man for help. But it was time to stop living under someone else’s skirts. She was going all the way.

After all, all Nami had left was justice. Harsh and simple.

Like the rules of Arlong Park.

But this time, the one who screwed up was him.

And it was time he learned what it meant to pay.

Chapter Text

A thief’s victory relied on a simple premise: not getting caught.

You could play with identity. Nami had often pretended to be a lost rich girl to scam those looking to take advantage of her.

You could play with secrets. The story of a spy selling information between crews and slipping backstage into treasure cabins had worked wonders for her.

You could play with empty promises. Promises of diamonds to someone sitting atop a mountain of gold, just to get them to rise and let her slip her hand into the real treasure.

But you could never, ever, play with freedom.

The moment a thief’s wrists were bound, sleight of hand lost its magic.

That harsh lesson, she learned from Carina.

Between kisses and promises, Carina had blinded her, convinced her that real love was built on trust, that one would sacrifice for the other. But in the end, the only sacrifice had been hers—because the only fool who closed her eyes while kissing had been her.

Nami had learned the lesson. She’d never get caught again, and never again kiss anyone with her eyes closed.

But the trouble with lessons—and with cat burglars—was that she always found an exception to the rule.

She had sworn never to trust again, yet found herself buried in an embrace.

She had promised never to love again, yet the smell of chocolate haunted her senses.

She knew the rule of the thief, and yet there she was, walking straight into a palace full of enemies, ready to become the prey once more.

Sometimes, she wondered if it was the fault of her deafness. Just like her ears filtered out the sounds she didn’t want to hear, she listened to lessons through a preset filter—ready to discard them if they didn’t suit her.

The throne room reeked of salt and rot.

The marble was cracked, corroded by brine. Even stone trembled in the presence of Arlong.

Chew raised his head when he saw her approach, but instead of stopping her, he smiled and signaled the humans to let her through. He whistled, and the rest of the crew continued walking across the marbled floor.

The palace’s structure was opulent but simple—like even the architect had known that true power didn’t require complexity, just grandeur and gold. That thought, in Nami’s mind, packed with alleys and escape routes, gave her the security to stretch her fingers, breathe deep, and find calm.

Seated on the throne, legs crossed and arrogance oozing, the fish-man watched her with the malicious curiosity of a predator. A half-smile slashed his face in two—somewhere between cruelty and amusement.

That expression had haunted her nightmares during every night away from Arlong Park.

“I knew you’d come back,” Arlong purred, his voice sticky and salty. “How long’s it been? A week since you disappeared? You’ve been making me doubt lately, Nami—and you know I don’t like those games.”

Though his words were sharp, he spoke them with mockery, through clenched teeth. “How silly of me. How could I ever doubt you?”

Beside him stood a small, blond man with a disgusted look. Nami recognized him—he’d been present during the torture of Ace, visible through the palace windows.

She clenched her teeth and kept her gaze locked on Arlong, refusing to flinch. For now, she kept silent.

“You’re smart,” Arlong continued. “Smarter than all those fools you hang around with now. Garp? That crazy old man? Come on, Nami. I know why you’ve come. You know the smart thing is to sell me what you know. You want to survive. And you’ve always known what it takes to survive.”

She took a step forward, gripping her staff tightly. The motion made Arlong raise an eyebrow. He clenched his jaw, though he didn’t let the smile fall. When the staff hit the floor, the sound echoed across the hall.

“No.”

The silence thickened. Arlong stared at her. Despite his relaxed posture, a sharp metallic glint lit up his eyes.

“So you haven’t come to bow your head,” he said, slowly, clinically. “Then what are you playing at?”

Nami lifted her chin—and spat.

“I’ve come to tell you the game’s over. No more bluffs, no more hiding. You’re finished, Arlong. This story ends here. You’d better accept it.”

“Accept it?”

The fish-man stood. His footsteps echoed through the cracked marble, as though the ground itself recognized the weight of an executioner.

“Have you really forgotten what happens when you break the rules? Have you forgotten your island?”

A sharp pain flared under her sleeve—where her wounds lay hidden. Of course she hadn’t forgotten. The taste of saltwater, the tangerine groves, the broken laughter of frightened children, the curses of the adults who hated her. It was all there, in her throat, in her chest.

It was written on her skin in bruises and scars, in sleepless nights and swollen eyes.

“I haven’t forgotten,” she said slowly. “But you won’t be able to touch them. You’re done.”

The palace trembled. Guards and fish-men looked around in alarm. The blond king shrieked.

The explosion came like a roar. The ground shook, plaster rained down from the ornate ceiling.

Arlong turned sharply.

“What was that?”

Nami smiled—a smile devoid of sweetness. A wild, familiar grin. One that matched Arlong’s own.

“Told you, this little play of yours ends here.”

The doors boomed.

In seconds, the hall filled with smoke, footsteps, voices, and steel.

The barking-dog hat leading the sea of white and blue Marine uniforms swayed with animal hunger. The old man didn’t blink as he locked eyes on the uncrowned king upon the throne.

The Vice-Admiral’s gaze flicked to Nami briefly—then settled on the monster before him.

“I’ve heard what you did to my granddaughter, Arlong,” barked Garp, fury laced through every word.

The room’s royal grandeur dissolved under the metallic clang of drawn weapons.

“Rats should know their place,” growled Arlong, rising with rigid dread.

Nami took a breath—aware that, for the first time since they’d met, the fish-man looked small. Frail.

Was he remembering the chains, the iron beatings of his past? Was he fearing punishment the way she once had?

She had wandered through the labyrinth of shackles and despair, whispering into the dark, wondering if living was worth it when breathing cost so much. And in secret, she had asked herself if Arlong had ever felt the same.

Now, looking at his hunched form and clenched jaw—she had her answer.

Yes.

Arlong was afraid.

Utterly terrified.

Her thoughts broke as the Dadan gang stormed in across the shattered marble.

Dadan radiated fury.

Ace strode in with fire blazing behind his eyes.

Luffy followed behind Makino—jaw set, rage washing away every trace of childishness.

Then, a voice echoed from the heavens:

“By order of the Goa Court and the Inspector General of Marine HQ, Sengoku—Don Sterry Pompadour is hereby arrested for treason and the murder of the king!”

The words hung for a second like a spark—then chaos exploded.

Soldiers, pirates, and Marines dove into battle.

In the mayhem, Nami stepped forward—ready to run to her people. But the floor vanished beneath her feet.

A hand—cold as ice—closed around her throat.

Arlong.

His claws were living iron. His eyes, sharpened blades.

His breath reeked of fish guts.

“You really thought you could hand me over and survive, little brat?”

Nami struggled, but he lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing.

Around her: Ace’s fire, Luffy’s fists, Garp’s orders, Dadan’s roar—

And still, in that moment, the world collapsed to nothing but Arlong’s foul breath and her suffocating fear.

Then, a second voice rose—deep, firm, unstoppable.

“Arlong!”

The fish-man turned instinctively.

At the threshold, standing tall among the soldiers—Jimbei.

He radiated the authority Arlong had long lost.

The authority of a king.

In his hand, a scroll bore five rings crossed in a seal.

“By direct order of the World Government,” he said, unrolling it. “Your sentence is reinstated. Your pardon is revoked.”

The hall fell silent.

Jimbei stepped forward—eyes as deep as the sea, unflinching.

“Lay down your arms, brother. The game is over.”

Arlong roared—a sound from the ocean’s depths.

“Never! I will never surrender to this rotten world of humans!”

Nami looked around:

Ace blazing toward Arlong like a comet.

Garp shouting orders.

Luffy bouncing through enemies like rubber lightning.

And Jimbei—ascending the steps with calm, empty hands, justice by his side.

Hope ignited in her chest.

“I’ll make you a deal, Arlong,” Nami whispered, still dangling. “Surrender now, and I won’t slit your throat tonight while you sleep. Fair trade, don’t you think?”

Arlong’s jaw tightened. He shook—not with fear, but rage.

“You’ll regret this, thief!”

“Maybe,” she muttered. “But not today.”

Jimbei raised his hand. With grace and precision, his palm struck Arlong’s forearm.

The grip loosened.

Nami hit the floor, gasping. Air flooded her lungs—pounding like war drums. Like freedom.

Jimbei didn’t flinch. Didn’t look down. Didn’t hesitate.

“It’s over,” he declared.

Nami breathed.

The world around her surged on—chaos, fire, steel.

As her chains fell away, everything kept moving. Like the world hadn’t noticed the sound of iron hitting the ground.

A thief’s victory relied on a simple premise: not getting caught.

But she was no longer a thief, pirate, or executioner. That day, Nami became once more a girl without a mother or a horizon. A sad girl—but a girl with no shackles on her wrists.

She drew breath, and sat upon the marble. Among screams and gunfire.

She breathed again and kept breathing.

In peace.

In freedom.

Chapter Text

Bells never rang to herald good news.

Nami had heard them many times. When villagers died, they tolled three times. When a fire broke out, they tolled again. And during Arlong’s invasion, they had never stopped ringing.

Yet when Garp finally chained the blue-scaled man who had enslaved her, the bells rang once more.

Again and again and again.

Clink, clank.

Sterry, the new king, wept as they dragged him through the streets toward justice.

Arlong’s chains rattled to the rhythm of the bells, a vengeance more intoxicating than any liquor.

Clink, clank.

Metal gnawed at the skin like bites; Nami knew that pain well. And despite her rage, she found herself wondering whether scales too would stain with the reddish tint of rust.

Under Jimbei’s steady gaze, the fish-man fixed his eyes on her, anchoring a threat within their glimmer. He did not roar or curse, did not struggle or spit. A single look was all it took to feed Nami’s nightmares for years to come. Her shoulder cramped beneath the scars of stabbings, a canvas of ink and tatters.

Clink, clank.

The sound lingered under the afternoon sun, while Nami rested her head on the shore, surrounded by water, promises, and laughter.

The sea tugged at her hair with the rhythm of the waves, and the sun—whom she had never allowed to mark her skin more than the work demanded—playfully toasted her shoulders.

Clink, clank.

The echo of his shadow still wove itself into the lull of the sea, the salt of the waves, the whisper of the wind against the rocks. And Nami knew she would carry it always, etched beneath a myriad of scars, of memories, forever interwoven into fear itself.

And yet, the sea was calm, and the waves broke lazily against the shore. Luffy ran across the sand with his pants rolled up, Ace chased him with a mischievous grin and a bucket full of water, and Nami—for the first time in a long time—allowed herself to truly laugh.

No shackles, no threats, no escape plans or half-schemed thefts. Only an endless sea and the sun.

Clink, clank.

“Just a few months until my birthday. It’s time I set out to sea,” Ace said, lying back on the sand, hair tousled, gaze lost on the horizon.

“So soon?” Luffy asked, in that tone that tried to sound carefree, but barely hid a prick of jealousy.

“The future Pirate King has to welcome his little brother when he sets sail, doesn’t he?”

Luffy pressed his lips together and laughed, as if the very thought were a grand joke.

“I’m the only one who’ll become King of the Pirates, idiot.”

Clink, clank.

Nami drew a breath as she watched them, tongue pressed tight between her teeth, doubt clouding her gaze. The chill of abandonment was a fear that, once known, never let go.

“I have to go too,” she said—the words tasted of salt—“my sister is waiting. She must be worried.”

Luffy straightened, though surprise never even touched his expression. Instead, his lips curved downward, a pronounced pout that spoke of childish helplessness. She, despite the heaviness that came with the very thought of leaving the only island where she had been happy in years, burst into laughter.

“If you want, you can come with me.”

Clink, clank.

Luffy’s childishness washed off his face as the waves crashed against the maturity of his words.

“I made a vow, Nami. If I leave now, I’d be breaking it. Besides—” he glanced at his brother, who tipped the brim of his hat in the slightest of gestures, enough to make Luffy smile—“I have to get stronger, strong enough to become King of the Pirates and protect the people I care about.”

She sighed, the sound carrying as far as the windmills, and rested her chin on her knees.

“Can’t your sister come here?” Ace asked, seeking some reconciliation between two irreconcilable teenagers.

Much to her regret, Nami shook her head, eyes cast down.

“And my village? Who would free them then?”

Luffy, ever-changing, pressed his hands against the sand and burst into laughter, as if he were speaking not of farewells but of beetles.

“Then I’ll have to come find you when the time comes. I can’t set sail without my navigator.”

She squared her shoulders and splashed her friend with seawater from the waves.

“You wouldn’t even make it to my island without me. You’re hopeless at navigation. So I’ll have to come find you instead. It’s a promise, right? Because the three of us have to meet again on the sea.” —Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the smile of the older brother, and decided to strike before it went to his head—. “We can’t let Ace become Pirate King before you, Luffy.”

Ace shot Nami an indignant look, but in the end he too succumbed to their laughter.

Clink, clank.

And the afternoon went on to the sound of the bells.

Chapter Text

Nami had never been able to face a farewell, so she made a habit of stealing them in the dark nights, in secret, when tears were still too asleep to reach her.

She decided, with her fingers already cold, bitten by the nocturnal waves of the sea, that she would not cry anymore. She took her small cartography kit and studied the islands illustrated so far, with the smudges and additions she had made since her arrival at Foosha. The crosses and circles on the paper spoke to her of happy days by the shore, of secrets whispered in the dark, and of freedom. They spoke of two rebellious teenagers in a treehouse, of a grandfather full of speeches about the Navy, of a band of kindhearted bandits.

There would be no turning back, she decided as she traced a cross scratched in black on the paper, bound again for an island ravaged by evil. Behind her she left the island of windmills, never to see it again. For though she left much affection there, she would not return for many years, driven to live in freedom.

Hidden in her satchel, her hands found a piece of bread and cheese. Makino had urged her, with smiles that bordered on threat, to stash away food among her belongings.

Nami felt strange when she bit into the bread and chewed a meal that had not been stolen from pirates.

Makino had been preparing a great deal of food for Ace’s voyage into unpredictable seas, and in a peculiar way she had also decided to put together a food bundle for her.

When she gave it to her, she placed a kiss on Nami’s forehead, the disguised shape of a blessing before a journey at sea.

With the moon overhead, Nami tested the sails and dipped her fingertips into the icy seawater, searching for a warm current.

When she drew them out, she dried her hand with the coarse handkerchief Dadan had shoved brusquely into her belt before going off to bed. In the shadows, the gesture had felt rough, but on the open sea she was grateful for the warmth of the fabric against her skin.

The waves tapped gently against the wood, marking a rhythm that seemed to echo a heartbeat.

Nami closed her eyes and breathed deeply, letting the salt and the cold fill her lungs.

The sea whispered around the little boat, and the moon drew silver paths across its surface.

She stretched her legs and let her feet dangle just above the water. The cold was a whip that kept her awake, submerged in the restless memory of her farewell.

That night, with darkness as her companion, she slipped from the sheets and, before leaving the room, paused to look at the two brothers with whom she was leaving her heart behind.

She watched them in silence, and her heart threatened to anchor her to the floor.

Her body, moved by an invisible force, leaned over Luffy’s smiling figure, careful not to make the boards creak.

The boy’s jet-black hair yielded to her fingers when she brushed it from his forehead. Doubt halted her an instant before she brushed her lips against it. Nami lost herself in the warmth of the kiss and pretended, for whole seconds, that she was not a cartographer, but just a little girl with the taste of chocolate on her tongue.

Luffy muttered something under his breath and sighed, his dream spun beneath the lightness of a kiss.

When Nami finally found the courage to recover her reason, she turned quickly to the other side, her cheeks flushed, her heart racing. A warmth that, even in the cold sea hours later, would embrace her like the sun itself, lighting her way home.

Then she leaned over Ace. The teenager, sunk in sleep, did not move nor change the rhythm of his breathing, but with her heart still racing, Nami was alarmed at the fleeting sense that the corner of his mouth tightened for an instant. She shook her head and scolded herself, knowing it could only be a trick of slumber.

With a soft sigh, she pulled the sheet over his shoulders and pressed her fingertips against them to steal a farewell.

Nami forced herself to rise with the stealth of a thief, turned back, and closed the door. Behind it she locked away the laughter, the dreams, and the love, trading them for the old, singed, timeworn courage she had been forced to wear for years.

The hallway was swallowed in darkness, lit only by the strokes of moonlight filtering through the cracks. With the unbearable thought of never returning, she finally stopped before another door, larger and battered. Garp’s room.

The old man snored. A suspiciously steady snore, not too strange, but steady enough to seem staged. And if a well-trained thief had stopped to listen, she might have thought he was making sure anyone who heard would believe he was sound asleep.

But that night, Nami had left cartography behind, so she could forget the good arts of thievery as well.

She drew a breath and peeked inside.

Garp slept on his side, arms crossed over his chest, as though even in dreams he remained more vice admiral than grandfather. The room was steeped in the strong smell of tobacco and old wood.

She leaned on the doorframe and watched him for a few seconds before deciding to step in.

When she reached his side, she carefully laid her hand on his head, upon the white, softened hair of old age.

“Thank you, Grandpa.”

The old man let out a guttural snore, and she stepped back with a smile on her lips—leaving behind half-open, gleaming eyes.

Once at sea, Nami had time to return the smile to the damned old man who had wanted to adopt her by force.

Sleep had eluded the house that night while the cat burglar stole goodbyes and affection took on a silent, sleeping shape. For that night, love meant letting go in secret, in the hushed manner of a midnight theft.

When the memory left her, she hugged her knees and let the rocking of the boat lull her.

Her shoulders tensed when the water stirred to the rhythm of fins.

With her heart in her throat and fear in her gut, Nami saw a pair of black eyes surrounded by scales.

“Jinbe,” she greeted once she’d found her voice again.

The enormous fish-man blinked.

“Do you mind if I accompany you home?”

Silence kept them company for a while as the boat cut through the waves, the Gyojin at its side.

“Why do you want to go to Cocoyashi?”

The man’s fangs gleamed in the moonlight when he answered.

“I want to atone for my brother’s sins—and I’d like to help repair the damage.”

She did not find the strength to answer, her throat tight with the sea’s salt. Instead, she shifted aside and made space for Jinbe in her little boat.

“They’ll fear you. And they’ll hate you,” she warned as he climbed aboard.

“Hate is the fair price for my brother’s sins.”

They both fell silent as the sea carried them away from the windmills.

A shooting star crossed the sky, brief as a heartbeat.

Nami closed her eyes and made a wish. She did not put it into words, for she knew wishes could not bear the weight of her tongue. She kept it in silence, trusting the wide sea to interpret it.

Under the moon, she savored the treasure she carried home with a smile. For she carried a sack full of hope and the fortunate promise of a future reunion.

Deep in her soul, she was certain that no matter how long it took, destiny would bring them together again. For that was how the pirate’s life worked: through chance encounters and great adventures.

With longing on her back, Nami rose slowly, gathered her map, tucked it away with the rest of her treasures, and took the helm once more.

“We still have a long road ahead,” she sighed.

The journey had barely begun, but in her chest burned the conviction that the waves, instead of separating her, were carrying her closer to a promise she had just left sleeping ashore.

And so, beneath the mantle of night and the company of the stars, Nami kept sailing toward her destiny, certain that someday, they would meet again.

Chapter Text

The year Nami turned eighteen, there was an invasion of orange ladybugs on the island. They swarmed over the crops, slipped into socks, and some fishermen even found them inside the stomachs of unsuspecting fish.

In January, the chocolate seller returned to the island, and Genzo gave Nojiko and her a bar to share. Nami saved a single piece in a drawer, alongside a jar full of ladybugs and a windmill toy.

With care and delicacy, she spent that winter tracing each and every line of Cocoyashi’s coastline and stored away a small treasure in a chest, ready for any misfortune.

Nojiko and Genzo often watched her work from the corner of their eyes, but insisted more on shared meals and enjoying family time together. Both of them sensed she would soon leave the island to live her adventures; together, they had witnessed the many nights she spent sitting atop the cliff, with a map and a bottle of liquor, searching the horizon for suspicious lines that spoke of pirates. Never with fear, but always with a smile drawn across her lips.

When summer came, Nami rose one morning, took her pack, and buried within it the few belongings she had treasured in the years after Arlong. They weren’t many—beyond the gold and jewels she hadn’t distributed among the villagers—but they were enough for Nojiko to know her sister wouldn’t set foot on the island again for a long time.

Nami didn’t like goodbyes, so the two of them worked as they always did, shared a meal with Genzo, and on the way home parted ways: Nojiko to a cottage surrounded by the scent of orange blossoms, and Nami to the sea, which after years of punishment had once again become her home.

Nami caught the wind in her sails and set off in search of the scent of chocolate she had lost years before on an island full of windmills. And fate, instead of leading her to Goa, carried her to Orange Town.

To an island tormented by pirates. To a pair of black eyes and a straw hat. To the arms of the only man who understood the flight of the orange beetles.