Nami peeked from behind a tree as she spied on the pirate ship that was sitting at a hidden cove of the island she was on. 'Finally! Looks like tomorrow's the day!' she sighed in relief when she saw the pirates gearing up with swords, guns, and cannons, looking like they were getting ready to go on a raid. She had tailed these pirates for a whole week, studying whether their treasury was on their ship or if they had a base somewhere else, studying who was in charge, how strong they were, and other things which helped her determine if she could steal from them without getting caught or not.
"You filthy landlubbers!" the captain of the pirate crew yelled, "Tomorrow morning, we pillage!" The other pirates cheered, "Tomorrow, we get so rich that we can eat till our stomachs explode!" another cheer, "Bury ourselves in booze!…" Nami tuned him out getting the feeling that his rant was going to go on for a while. She had the confirmation that they would be doing the raid the next morning, and that was all she needed, so she left.
She made her way through the thick forest with no need of a map to know where she was heading, and thirty minutes later, reached a town. She bought some food, went to the inn she had rented a room in, took a bath, made herself a hot cup of tea and then sat and stared out of the second-story window her room was on.
The town was called Inizio and even though it was late at night, the town was bustling with activity as people mingled at the many stalls that sold food, clothes, accessories and all sort of things.
The joyful atmosphere was heightened by the lively music that spilled out from a nearby tavern, along with loud cheers and raucous laughter as people shared stories and drinks late into the night. All in all, the word 'happy' was best used to describe the folks of Inizio, and in contrast to all the joyful people, Nami was staring at them all with a sad melancholic look.
'This whole place is gonna get destroyed tomorrow morning' she thought with sadness as she leaned on the windowsill. The Leaper Pirates, who she was tailing for the past week, would be pillaging this village early next morning and doing what pirates did best - destroy.
She could try to stop it by informing the Marines but knew from experience that it wouldn't do anything. This wasn't the first time she had found pirates who wanted to raid a place in advance after all. She thought back to the first time she had hoped the Marines would do something to help her and she had flashbacks of Arlong destroying five battleships like they were nothing.
After that, she had resolved to never ask for help, but that was with Arlong. During her early runs, she would sometimes find that a pirate crew was attacking some town in advance and had tried to warn the town. The first time, she had gone to the village chief and informed him that a pirate crew was planning an attack on them and the chief had believed her. He had called the Marines but they didn't care and dismissed the information as made-up, and as a result, she had seen many people die the next day. She only learned much later that the Marines were bribed by the pirates to not interfere with the raid, which had shocked her.
She had tried a few more times back when she was still really young and she failed every time as the Marines were either in cahoots with the pirates, or dismissed her claims as a young girl's silly delusions. If the village people trusted her and tried to escape, the pirates preemptively attacked and sometimes, it led to worse situations.
After some time, she had lost confidence and hope that she could ever help anyone, so all she did now was use the opportunity to steal so that the people closest to her could be freed. It was usually easiest to steal from pirates when they are in the middle of a raid as they would be off the ship, thus, leaving the treasury less guarded. She usually decided how to steal for each pirate crew separately and for a big crew like the Leaper pirates which had almost 50 members, this was the most effective plan.
It still didn't feel good though. Knowing that such a happy town would be destroyed the next day while she knew about it and could do nothing made her feel guilty.
There was a sudden crowd forming right outside a restaurant that caught her attention where people were yelling the letters 'YMCA' with glee, but hearing that only made her mood dip further.
'I'm sorry, but I'm not strong enough to help you…' she apologized before sighing and closing the window, shutting out the joyful atmosphere as she lay on her bed.
She shook the depressing thoughts away and thought of what she should do after stealing from the Leaper pirates the next day. The Alvida pirates were nearby, so they were her next target. She had heard that they raided cruise ships mostly, so all she had to do was find out which cruise ship they would attack in advance, get on it and when they did attack, she could slip into the pirate ship, steal all she wanted and escape. It would take a couple of weeks to gather the information, but it was pretty easy.
But she worried about what came after. She was running out of pirates to steal from and these days, the pirates she could target were poor themselves. It was useless to keep stealing such measly amounts as it would take a very long time to gather the 100 million if she kept going like this.
"Is it time I headed to the Grand Line?" she wondered aloud with a sigh. She had heard only rumours of that place which basically went something like 'Terrifying, death, scared, never going back again, pirate graveyard'
It would be a huge risk sure, but just one trip to the Grand Line could be enough for her to gather the rest of the money she needed to buy her village and get her life back. She just had to be careful like always and not take too many risks and she would be fine. 'It would be nice to have someone with me though…' she thought but discarded it instantly. 'No friends. I fight alone…'
She sighed thinking it over but ultimately decided that she would head to the Grand Line after she stole from the Alvida pirates. She had heard a rumour that the Marine Base in Shellstown had a map to the Grand Line, and thus, her next two destinations were also set.
—
The next morning, Nami coughed and wheezed as she hauled a bag of treasure behind her through the smoking remains of the pirate ship she was on. 'Ugh why did things suddenly go so wrong?' she huffed with irritation. Everything was going well until the damn ship exploded out of nowhere.
As planned, she had snuck onto the ship and was waiting for the pirates to leave the ship to go raid the town. They had started off by firing cannonballs at the town, so she stayed still waiting for it to be over. But suddenly, the ship lurched violently which was followed by a sudden explosion and everything went to hell.
Apparently, the gunpowder in the below deck had somehow caught on fire and had caused the explosion which had destroyed the ship and it had begun to slowly sink. Chaos had ensued as pirates ran around in a panic trying to run away from the fire and smoke, but ever the opportunist, Nami had used the chaos to make her way to the treasury of the ship.
The walls of the treasury room were blown wide open, so she didn't even have to break in, but a fire in an adjacent room was quickly filling it up with smoke. She didn't care as she had hastily started filling up a bag with treasure.
Halfway through unfortunately, some of the calmer members of the pirate crew, also having had the same thought of getting the treasure, came to the treasury room too and thus, she was now running away from them by purposefully going through smoke-filled regions of the ship hoping to lose them.
'I'm gonna kill whoever blew up the ship!' she vowed with irritation as she finally made it to the upper deck, coughing and wheezing hard. She collapsed to her knees taking in heavy gulps of some much needed fresh air, but she soon heard voices very close to her.
"Who's she?" / "I don't know" / "Intrude-"
She looked up to see three pirates through her teary eyes and quickly realizing that these pirates didn't yet know that there was a thief on board, composed herself and waved at them with a smile.
"Oh, hey," she wheezed, still coughing as she struggled to bring her breathing under control. "I'm the new recruit that the boss just picked up!"
"Woah really?! Boss finally recruited a girl?!"
'Good, these guys are morons!' Nami smiled as she slowly looked around. Most of the pirates had already jumped ship and the ship was also breaking apart. She was at the back of the ship, which was still relatively intact as the fire still hadn't spread till there and luckily she spotted a couple of dinghies still on board. She hauled the bag of treasure that she hadn't let go of even through all the smoke and fire, and made her way to the dinghy while making conversation with the pirates, "I'll meet you on the island. We can steal all the treasure we want there and drink all we want!"
"Yeah!" the idiot pirates chorused happily.
'Good!' Nami applauded herself as she put the bag of treasure inside the dinghy and was about to push it into the sea to make her escape, but another pirate who was chasing her earlier showed up.
"You thief! That's our treasure you're stealing there!"
"No no, she's a new recruit" the three idiot pirates explained with grins and Nami was hoping the new one was also an idiot, but unfortunately, he wasn't.
"Idiots!" he yelled at the three before bringing his sword out and pointing it at Nami. "Someone blew up the ship to steal the treasure! It's this bitch!"
"Now now, you can ask the boss yourself. I really am the new recruit," Nami placated backing away as her hands hovered over her thigh holster where her bo staff was.
"Liar!" the guy yelled and lunged at her with his sword. Nami, already expecting it, ducked down, pulled out and assembled her bo staff, stepped diagonally across him and swung her staff at the back of his knees. The pirate staggered to a knee losing his balance and before he could even process what had happened, Nami twirled the staff around herself and smashed it on the back of his head.
"Gakh!" he fell down unconscious. Nami didn't have time to celebrate as the three idiot pirates would attack her now too, so quickly turned to face them… but was bewildered to find that all three were down too.
"What?" she looked around not understanding how the three had been taken out but hearing more shouts of 'There's a thief on board!', she didn't delve on it and quickly pushed the dinghy into the sea. She jumped into it and soon, she was rowing away as fast as she could away from the ship.
"Phew! That was a close one" Nami let out a sigh of relief thinking she was in the clear but not even a couple of meters away from the sinking ship, her dinghy lurched suddenly. She let out a yelp holding onto the side of the boat so that she wouldn't fall over while her eyes searched for what caused the sudden jerk and realized someone had jumped into her dinghy. 'Shit!'
She quickly pulled out her staff, turned to face the person and locked eyes with a straw hat-wearing black-haired teen standing at the bow of the dinghy. Thinking he was a pirate who had jumped from the burning ship, she was going to swing at him and take him out by surprise but froze when she saw the widest and most joyous smile she had ever seen on a person's face.
———
The previous night
"Goodbye, Big bro Luffy! See you tomorrow!" a few kids chorused together with excited grins as they waved at him and went away with their parents.
Luffy waved at them with a smile but he was more focused on studying each face of the dispersing crowd to see if he could spot the faces of Zoro or Nami. He let out a tired sigh when he didn't and went back to the restaurant where Makinowas waiting.
"Didn't find them?" Makino asked sadly as she saw the unsatisfied look on Luffy's face.
"Nope. Maybe they're not here" Luffy sighed as he studied the plethora of maps littered on the table. There were a ton of markings, routes, notes, etc., on the maps which he had made and he added another note of 'Not here?' next to a town called Inizio.
"It was still fun watching those kids dance though," Makino chuckled, "You sure have picked up a lot of catchy songs now," she said before humming a tune.
"Yeah, it's cool huh?" Luffy grinned. The two were dining at an open restaurant and when Luffy had seen a group of kids playing just outside, he had joined in and made them dance to YMCA in the hopes that a large crowd would form. If Nami and Zoro were around, then he was hoping that they would be attracted by the crowd and show up too, but sadly, they hadn't.
"You said Zoro should show up in Shellstown any day now right?" Makino asked as she pointed at said town on the map.
"Yeah, so it actually doesn't matter now I guess. The last two weeks sure were a massive waste of time huh? Just been going on a wild goose chase"
"Hey, don't say that," Makino said in a chiding tone, "If we weren't there, a lot of people would have lost their lives at those islands we stopped at you know"
"Hmm yeah, I guess that's the one good thing that came out of this," Luffy said as he pondered over the journey so far.
It had already been two weeks since they had left Dawn Island and they had spent that time searching for Zoro and Nami. Zoro, with his wonderful sense of direction, was unpredictable as he was drifting from place to place without any specific directions and the only clue Luffy had regarding his location was that he would be somewhere near Shellstown. Nami, on the other hand, was actually easy to track if he made some assumptions.
Technically, with her skillful navigation, she could pretty much be anywhere in East Blue, but she wasn't just drifting from place to place like Zoro was. She actually had a specific objective of stealing from pirates and didn't just randomly drift from place to place to find them, but actually made plans and targeted pirate crews. So, all Luffy had to do to find her was to find out which pirate crews she would target.
Back in Loguetown, he had gone through every single bounty poster and gotten a list of all the pirates in East Blue. Luffy first eliminated all the bounties of less than a million as they wouldn't have much treasure and Nami would either have already stolen from them or they weren't worth the effort. Nami was looking for the map to the Grand Line during the Orange Town arc as she wasn't finding any more pirates with enough treasure in East Blue anymore, so that was a safe assumption to make. That eliminated a ton of pirates from the list.
In Loguetown, during the journey to Dawn Island, and the last two weeks since he started his journey, at every island they came across, he had asked bounty hunters, journalists, Marines, and even some villagers about which pirates were usually spotted where especially those that were spotted around Shellstown and neighbouring regions. He had also broken into Marine bases and stolen documents which had detailed reports of pirate sightings, among other things. He even scoured newspapers which had thus given him a ton of information about a lot of pirates.
Logically, if he was a thief, he would target pirate crews that are close by in one single sweep instead of stealing from pirates that were far away from another. So, since Nami would be targeting Alvida, it would make sense for her to also target any close-by pirates too if they were worth it. Thus, if a pirate was usually spotted somewhere far away from Shellstown, he eliminated them from the list and considered only the ones close to Shellstown.
And finally, he had narrowed down the list of pirates Nami could target to just three crews - The Alvida pirates, the Leaper pirates and the Bulldog pirates. Again, if Nami was targeting some pirate that was somewhere far away from Shellstown, then all his analysis would be moot, but Luffy thought that this cluster of three pirate crews that were close by would attract her attention. She usually only went on short trips as she had to draw maps for Arlong and couldn't be away from Cocoyashi for long trips, so she would target as many pirates as she could in short intervals of time, and thus, choose pirates that were closer.
Just like him, she also got her information from asking around on the seas and would have probably done a very similar analysis as him too. Also, she went straight to Shellstown after stealing from Alvida in the story, so she would have targeted the other two pirate crews before her.
And thus, the day he had started his journey, he set a course to find where the Bulldog pirates were last spotted and after visiting two islands, finally found them. He had waited on that island, hoping Nami would show up, but the Bulldog pirates had started attacking the village on the second day he was there, and thus, he had stepped in and taken care of them. After that, only the Leaper pirates were left, and thus, he had come to Inizio as they were last spotted near here.
This island was also one of the closest islands to Shellstown, so he thought that Zoro could also be here. He had left five weeks earlier than his story counterpart, and two weeks had gone by, so it was currently three weeks before his birthday. In the story, Zoro would have been tied up to the cross for three weeks before story Luffy shows up, so this was the around the time Zoro would show up in Shellstown, so he was either already in Shellstown or somewhere close by.
"This is some complex analysis, Luffy…" Makino said bringing him out of his thoughts and found her staring at him and all the notes he had written on the maps. "It's unbelievable how much you've learned… You can even make such a detailed analysis now. You remember that your head would go red and actually start steaming when you thought just a bit too hard before right?" Makino said that last part with a giggle.
"Shishi yeah. Leo actually had a theory about that. Since I'm made of rubber, the neurons firing in the brain are slower and thus, I'm not able to think fast or retain a lot of information because my brain processing speed is slower"
"Hmm, but if your brain is made of rubber," Makino pondered with a finger on her chin, "wouldn't no neurons fire and send you into a vegetative state as soon as you ate your fruit?"
"I mean, you can squish my face flat, so my brain does stretch… but I guess it's not complete rubber? At least it's not rubber enough that it still allows neurons to fire? There was a time when I was wearing sea stone and was out of stamina as I hadn't had much to eat, and I was actually able to get electrocuted then. But now, I can't get shocked. So, my body's rubberiness? does vary…so who knows?"
"I see. And since you wore sea stone, you became less rubbery and thus, your brain is processing faster, can retain more and even think more clearly now?"
"That was a theory yeah. I'm really good at battles, right? So Leo had theorized that since my adrenaline is high and blood is getting pumped faster during battles, my brain is also working faster and so, my overworking brain processing is equivalent to a normal brain processing. And thus, I'm good at battles"
"So you're saying you would have been a genius if you didn't eat your fruit?" Makino giggled amused, "You were pretty stupid even before you ate your fruit"
"Yeah yeah," Luffy smiled, "It's just a theory. Who knows what the truth is… At the end of the day, only one theory seems to fit when someone tries to explain devil fruits powers"
"And what is that, Professor Luffy?"
"Devil fruits are bullshit," Luffy said nodding sagely causing Makino to giggle. The two had talked a lot over the past two weeks and Makino had soon learned that Luffy had a lot of nonsense in his head ranging from superheroes to time-travelling doctors. And at the same time, she saw him collecting information from various people and sources, plotting routes on maps and analysing where his supposed crewmates were. He still absolutely sucked at navigating though, which she took care of.
Other than that, he also knew of so many scientific concepts and one night, he had gone on a very long explanation about how devil fruits might work, which included words like electromagnetism, black bodies, dielectric constants… and so many other things, and she had no idea if he was just making up words or if there was actually something like that. She had even started playfully calling him 'Professor Luffy' when he was explaining stuff, 'Detective Luffy' when he was investigating where his crewmates were and 'Nonsense Luffy' when he told random stories.
At the end of the day, Luffy had changed a lot and she liked a lot of the changes. But there were a few changes that she absolutely loathed to the point that she wanted to beat him up. She wanted to confront him about it but she didn't know how exactly to navigate that conversation, so was waiting for the right time.
"Anyway," Luffy said changing the topic, "I'll go search for these Leaper Pirates tomorrow and we'll wait here for a couple of days. If nothing happens, we'll go to Alvida. I think she should be somewhere around here" he said tracing a region on the map.
"To get…um Coby?"
"Yep!"
"And then go to Shellstown where Zoro will show up. I got that right?"
"Yep"
"If you already knew where he was, why all this? Couldn't we have just waited in Shellstown?" Makino asked perplexed. As to how he knew where they were, she had asked him the first time he brought it up but he had deflected the questions or only given her vague answers. After that, she didn't pry and just accepted it, thinking that someone was giving him information.
"I'm more worried about Nami actually. Zoro, I'll somehow find him even if he doesn't show up at Shellstown as he's famous… but Nami?" he sighed with worry. "…either way, we'll continue finding her after we pick up Zoro," he trailed off not saying anything more and Makino sighed accepting his vague answers again. As for the real reasons Luffy had left earlier and was searching for his crewmates, there were several.
There were selfish reasons like him wanting the start of his journey to be different that what happened in the story. A lot of his crewmates were in specific places and he would meet them under specific situations which he knew he wouldn't be able to change much, but at least for Zoro and Nami, he could change it. He wanted to meet them under different circumstances than what happened in the story. And that's why even though Zoro would be showing up in Shellstown any day now, he was hoping he would still run into him on Inizio.
Another selfish reason was that he wanted to play detective and see if he could find them by himself.
And lastly, the actual major reason that had made him even think of leaving early was because of some of the pirate bounty posters he had seen back in Loguetown. A couple of pirates he had seen made him think, 'These guys exist? But wouldn't that mean that they could also be real? But how would that work?… Wait a minute… Oh No! What about Nami then?!'
He was downright terrified of the conclusions he had come to and just the thought of waiting for five weeks to get the confirmation if he was right or not had him going crazy. If his conclusions were correct, then he would definitely need the extra time but more importantly, he wanted to see Nami as fast as possible. And thus, he had left early.
As for the consequences of leaving early, he didn't care much. He knew many of his adventures relied a lot on them showing up at the right place at the right time, especially on the Grand Line. If he left earlier or later, then he would miss Vivi, miss the ship falling from the sky, miss the Knock-Up stream, and so many more events, but he wasn't worried. They were definitely not leaving East Blue until Zoro got his fight with Mihawk and that was a good equalizer in syncing up the time periods.
—
"AHHHH! PIRATE ATTACK!"
Luffy was woken up by loud booms and screams the next morning. He sat up on top of a tree where he was sleeping and lazily looked towards the shore where there were three pirate ships firing their cannons at the town. He sighed when he saw the Jolly Roger and recognized them as the Leaper Pirates. 'Great! If they're already attacking, Nami won't show up…'
He heard screams of people and used Soru and airwalk to get to the shore as quickly as possible. Makino was at an inn further inside the town so she would be safe. Panic had ensued as people were screaming and running away from the shore and just as Luffy got there, the pirate ships fired another salvo of cannonballs.
Luffy just leapt high into the air placing himself right in the way of one of the cannonballs and just as it was about to hit him, caught it in one hand, gripped it tight and used its momentum to rotate in place, thereby redirecting the projectile, and launched it back at the ship when he made a 360-degree turn.
It missed but he quickly airwalked to the other cannonballs in less than a second and threw them back at the ship, two of which crashed into one of the ships' hull, which somehow caused a chain reaction as the ship suddenly exploded.
"Oops?" Luffy landed back on the ground just as the explosion happened wondering what had caused it. He was utterly bored as he saw the other two ships stop firing, probably thinking that someone was firing at them, but confused when they didn't see anyone. The previous islands he had been to also had one or the other problem in which he had gotten involved, but any opponent was so boring and weak that he didn't even want to fight them.
"Luffy!" Makino called out and he saw her near a destroyed building, helping other people and the group of kids he had befriended the previous day too.
Ten minutes later, all the townspeople at the shore had vacated the area with Luffy helping people trapped in debris get out, while the two pirate ships stayed near the destroyed one. He sighed watching the ships and was about to go destroy them too but his eyes caught a flash of orange and he froze.
Suddenly, the shine in his eyes came back, his heart rate skyrocketed through the roof and his body started trembling with joy when he saw an orange-haired girl burst out from the smoking insides of the destroyed ship, coughing and wheezing as she hauled a big bag behind her. "Nami…" he breathed feeling a massive weight lift off his chest. "She's here…"
He saw her collapse to her knees coughing and wheezing and realized in horror that he had almost hurt her. Three pirates were present where she was and his hand automatically picked up debris from the collapsed building and aimed it at them.
He waited though knowing she could handle it on her own and his lips widened into a smile when she talked her way out of it and was about to make her escape on a dinghy. Unfortunately, another pirate came out and Luffy started airwalking to her instantly.
Nami took out one pirate in just two strikes from her staff with amazing grace, but the other three were about to attack her from behind, so he threw the large rock in his hand at them. It hit one of the pirates, who crashed into the other two, thus taking all three out at once. Nami seemed a bit confused when she turned to face them and saw all three knocked out, but she shrugged it off and pushed the dinghy into the sea before jumping in and paddling away.
He reached her then and she was watching the sea when he dropped into her dinghy. Luffy studied his navigator closely as she let out a yelp losing balance, but was quickly back on her feet with her bo staff pulled out and locked eyes with him. She had her trademark orange hair and was wearing a white shirt with an orange miniskirt with white rings on either side. As the two stared at each other as if in a daze, he noticed how chocolaty brown her eyes were.
"Hi!" Luffy happily greeted her and only then did Nami come out of her confused daze and instantly swung her staff at him yelling "Get off my boat!"
Luffy dodged it and looked at her amusedly, "Calm down, will you? It's not like I'm one of those pirates that you just stole from"
"What are you then?!" she asked noticing that he was in fact not one of the Leaper pirates. She had observed each of their crew members over the past week and she didn't remember seeing the man before her.
"Monkey D. Luffy! Nice to meetcha!"
"I'm not asking for your name! What are you doing on my boat?!"
"Just dropped in?"
She swung at staff at him again, "That's not an answer! Get off my boat!"
He again dodged it and Nami grew increasingly frustrated, "What do you want?!"
"Ah, nothing. Just wanted to apologize that's all"
"Apologize? For what?"
"That ship blowing up," he said pointing at the burning and sinking ship behind them, "I'm kinda responsible"
"It was you?!" Nami grew angrier as she swung her staff at him again with full force. Luffy didn't bother dodging this time, thinking she was going to keep doing it anyway, while Nami expected him to fall over after which she could trip him into the sea, but both heard a loud CRACK! as soon as the staff made contact.
The future captain and navigator both stared at the staff that was now broken in two with one piece dangling off of the other before looking up at each other again.
"Good strong swing," Luffy nodded approvingly giving her a thumbs up, "It wouldn't have broken if there was no strength behind it"
"You broke my staff!" Nami snapped grabbing him by the neck of his vest.
"I didn't! It just broke by itself!" Luffy argued trying to placate her. 'Damn, I messed up our first meeting…'
"The hell does that even mean?!" she shook him angrily, "I've had that staff for years and now you broke it! Pay me back!"
"Okay okay, I'm sorry. I'll pay for it"
"It costs 5 million berries!"
"Pfft~" Luffy couldn't help but laugh at the absurd price.
"Don't laugh!" Nami yelled shaking him by his neck, "I'm not joking!"
"Wait, did it really cost that much?"
"Yes!" 'Is he really that gullible?' "Now, pay me back!"
"Okay okay, calm down for a bit," Luffy said with an amused smile, "Look what's happening around you"
"Huh?" Nami was confused but when she did look around, she paled in horror when she saw the other two pirate ships flanking them from either side, essentially sandwiching them, while all the pirates were peeking over the deck staring at them with anger and some even had guns pointed right at them.
"Oh hey, boys," Nami said letting go of Luffy and waving at them with a smile, but was panicking on the inside while also thinking of how to get out of the situation.
"It's her, boss!" one of the pirates yelled pointing at her, "That's the thieving bitch who blew up the ship and stole all our treasure!"
"I did no such thing!" Nami snapped as she really hadn't blown up the ship.
"Then what's that bag over there?" the supposed captain calmly asked pointing inside her dinghy where the bag of treasure lay.
'Crap!' "Oh that…" she quickly looked for a way out and when she the strawhat bastard smiling at her, she saw a scapegoat. "It's this guy!" she said pointing at Luffy, "He's the one who blew up the ship and was taking all the treasure and running away! I was trying to stop him!"
"Oh? Is that true?" the captain asked.
"Well, I was the one who blew up the ship"
"See?!" Nami yelled pointing at him, "I was trying to stop him!"
"Just kill them both and get the treasure back" the captain ordered not buying her story and Nami's heart sank. She was sandwiched between two pirate ships, with multiple guns being pointed at her and a stranger in her boat whose motives she didn't know. Is this how she was going to go out? She had been so careful all this time and she was so close to gathering the 100 million… and this stupid situation was how she was going to die?
She, of course, didn't give up and was planning to jump into the sea but before she could even take one step, she suddenly felt the straw hat teen grabbing her hand stopping her.
Before she could protest, Luffy pointed at the sky and yelled, "Hey look! It's a Brontosaurus!"
All the pirates' eyes whipped upwards while Luffy pulled Nami into his arms, scaled the side of the ship, and jumped into the middle of pirates before using Soru to get behind all the pirates and entered the door that led to the below deck.
For Nami, it was like a series of slides. One instant she was in Luffy's embrace in the dinghy, the next instant, she was on the side of the ship where Luffy was scaling it with her in his hands, the next instant she was right in the middle of the numerous pirates on the ship, and before she even processed the image, she was staring at a staircase going down.
"Wha?" she muttered disoriented for a second before realizing that she was at the back of the pirate ship at the top of the stairs which led to the below deck. Somehow, she had moved from a dinghy in the sea facing a bunch of pirates to behind the pirates on their own ship within moments. She became bewildered when she saw the straw hat-wearing teen just behind her closing the door and pulling her down the stairs.
"H-how did we get here?" she whispered to him.
"Hm? I ran"
"You…ran?" Nami mumbled not understanding, "What do you mean you ran?"
Luffy stopped and faced her acting like he was confused, "Umm… It's just like walking, but faster"
"I know that, idiot!" Nami snapped growing irritated.
"Hey! I hear something below deck! Go check it out!" a voice said from outside and Nami clamped her own mouth shut realizing she had raised her voice. Hearing steps coming towards them from outside, she quickly started looking around for a place to hide. They were in a corridor, so she started running through it while looking for a room to hide in and Luffy followed behind her but much to her irritation, he was laughing at her.
"Don't laugh!" she whisper-hissed, "It's your fault!"
"Why? You're the one shouting and getting their attention"
"It's because you said stupid things!"
"Shishishishi"
"Wait a minute!" Nami suddenly stopped, "My treasure! I left it back in the din-"
"You mean this?" Luffy asked lifting up the bag of treasure in his hand.
"My treasure!" she exclaimed happily snatching it away from his hands. She then realized that he had hauled it all the way from the dinghy and grew cautious of him.
"This is mine!" she glared at him while hugging the bag.
"Yes, it's yours"
"You're not getting it!"
"I never asked for it" Luffy chuckled.
"…Why did you bring it with you then?"
"Hmm I saw you holding onto the bag even though you were choking on the smoke earlier and even while fighting that pirate, so I know it's precious to you"
"…Oh," Nami blinked. "Thank you then…" she said but was still suspicious of him and didn't let her guard down. The pirates were after him too, so at least until they were out of danger, they were in the same boat. She heard steps again, so again started moving trying to find a place to hide.
"Hey hey, I'm Luffy," Luffy introduced himself again as he ran behind her, "What's your name?"
"Now's not the time for introductions. We need to escape from here first," she said but then seemed to have a brilliant idea, "We're inside the ship!"
"…yeah?"
"I can steal more treasure from this ship!"
"Ah right," Luffy smiled already seeing her greediness for money trumping all her other worries. The two saw a few shadows coming from around the corner, so Nami quickly opened the closest door and got inside it with Luffy following behind her.
She took a moment to take a breath while also listening to the outside and groaned when she heard more pirates walking through the corridor.
"Where are they?!" / "Where the hell did they vanish?!" / "Search for them! I'm sure they're hiding here somewhere!"
While Nami was making plans on how to steal the treasure and escape, Luffy was having a hard time holding himself back as he wanted to talk about a lot of things with her, but he didn't want to spook her. He had to watch what he said to her and not blurt out stuff he had no way of knowing, so he was taking it slow and easy. He at least wanted her to introduce herself as he was sure he would slip up and call her Nami any second now, so he asked her again, "What's your name?"
"Now's not the time! We need to slip out from here first" she said making sure to keep her voice low.
"Oh c'mon, let's do introductions first"
"Shut up!" she snapped facing him, "And it was you who blew up the ship?! I almost died you know!"
"Ah sorry… didn't mean to do that"
"That's two you owe me now! My staff and almost killing me"
"Shishi sure, your staff was 5 million, so almost killing you costs me how much?"
"1 billion!" she declared causing Luffy to laugh out loud. Nami quickly clamped his mouth shut hissing, "Keep quiet, idiot!" which only made him more amused.
"Okay okay…but you do realize that the amount you're saying is absurd right?"
Nami sighed calming down, "Yeah yeah… but you do owe me though," she then held the neck of his vest again and in a threatening tone said, "And I'm not letting you go until you compensate me"
"Sure" Luffy happily chirped having no intention of separating from her.
Seeing the carefree Luffy actually managed to calm her down and she took a deep breath. The pirates seemed to be going away, so she relaxed and thinking that she could use the strawhat teen to steal the treasure, she finally introduced herself. "I'm Nami. I'm a pirate thief and you're gonna help me steal the treasure from this ship. That's a start at making it up to me"
"Sure!"
She grew suspicious at how easily he had accepted her proposal, "What were you doing blowing up the ship anyway?"
"Oh they were firing at the town, so I put a stop to it"
"You fired a cannon back at them?"
"In a way, yeah… but the ship blew up out of nowhere. I have no idea what happened"
"Idiots probably kept a lantern or something near the gunpowder which got knocked out when you fired at them"
"Maybe"
'So he lives there and is trying to protect the town?' she concluded wrongly. She wanted to ask more but the outside became completely silent and she slowly opened to door to peek out and found that the coast was clear.
"Okay, come on. Don't make a sound" she said and led the way cautiously looking around every corner while Luffy walked behind her just enjoying the fact that he was finally with a crewmate. They soon reached where Nami said the treasury was and she became happy when she found no one guarding it.
"It's my lucky day" she smiled as she fiddled with the lock on the door and within a minute, had it open. She happily opened the door but froze when she found a pirate sitting inside with a drink in his hand. He seemed to be drunk and barely sober, so she let out a sigh of relief.
The pirate groggily raised his head and asked, "Who are you? And how did you get in here?"
Luffy's eyes widened and with excitement, he jumped in to answer. He kept his voice flat and quoted Police Squad as he answered, "I'm a locksmith…and I'm a locksmith"
Nami and the pirate both blinked at him for a moment while Luffy alternated his gaze between the two with expectation and the pirate soon chuckled, "Heh… that was good. Do anoth-"
He got cut off when Nami just broke a bottle over his head and knocked him out.
"Nami!" Luffy whined, "The guy was appreciating my joke! You don't knock someone o-"
"Shut up!" she hissed, "He was so loud… And as for the joke, it was horrible!"
"That was comedy gold and you know it! I saw the smile on your face!"
"I didn't smile!"
"You did!"
"Oh shut up!" Nami hissed with a small blush of embarrassment as she had in fact found it to be funny and her lips had twitched upwards. The way he had delivered that line was in fact quite good but she refused to acknowledge that she had almost laughed at something so stupid. She got to bagging up all the treasure when she saw him sulking in a corner mumbling, "I waited my whole life for someone to ask me those questions in this scenario" and she shook her head as she continued to loot the place. 'What is he? A child?'
She kept glancing at him as she filled up the bags to see if he was interested in the treasure, but he didn't even glance at it, and seeing his carefree attitude, she let her guard down just a bit.
"…Why a brontosaurus?" she asked without looking up as she stuffed all the gold and money inside a bag.
"What?"
"Back when we were in the dinghy…you said 'Hey look, a Brontosaurus' to distract all of them. Why that specific dinosaur?"
Luffy grinned as he got close to her, "It's already funny if they fall for the oldest trick in the book of 'Hey, look! It's a blank.' Now, you add something absurd at the end like an alien spaceship or a brontosaurus, and they still fall for it?" he chuckled, "It's waay funnier"
Nami sucked in her lips to keep them from twitching upwards.
"I know it's not something worthy of a laugh, but you can chuckle at least. No one's gonna judge," Luffy said amused at her reaction.
"I'm not gonna. Because it's so stupid"
"Doesn't mean you didn't find it funny. And you did smile"
"If you want to make a girl laugh so bad, then you gotta try harder" she smirked challengingly.
"Okay then," Luffy also smirked and suddenly poked her in the stomach.
"Hey! That's cheating!" she said surprised and amused. She wanted to be mad at him for invading her personal space like that, but he just seemed so childish with no ulterior motive behind his actions that she could only find him to be playful.
"You never said I couldn't get physical," he said poking her in the stomach again and she squirmed trying to hold her laughter in. "Hey!"
"Don't hold back. Laugh at stupid things if you want to," he chuckled and kept poking her in the stomach.
"Okay okay! Stop!" Nami laughed feeling ticklish and also amused at how he behaved. When he did stop, she stared at him in amusement, "What are you, a child?"
"Shishishishi"
Nami's lips curled upwards hearing his joyful laughter. "You live in Inizio?" she continued the conversation.
"Nope"
"Visiting here?"
Luffy knew how she would react, but he had to say it sooner or later, so ripped the bandaid off. "Nope, I'm a pirate"
Nami's entire demeanour changed as she took a step away from him and her face morphed into angry disgust, "You're a scumbag pirate?!"
"No, I'm just a pirate. I'm not a scumbag"
"All pirates are scumbags. All you do is ruin people's lives!"
"I hate those pirates who go around hurting innocent people too. They just give pirates a bad name. I'm in it for the adventure!"
"Please! All pirates are scumbags who go around destroying everything they see! I hate pirates!" she yelled raising her voice a bit too loud. 'God! I can't believe I let my guard down around this guy!'
"Hey, I heard her!" / "There!" / "She's in one of these rooms!" / " Search for that thief!"
Nami paled when she realized where exactly she was. She had been so lost in talking with Luffy that she had actually forgotten she was on a pirate ship stealing their treasure and she couldn't believe that she had just screamed and given her position away. She looked at Luffy, who gave her an amused smile while saying "Idiot~"
"You're the idiot!" she snapped back, again raising her voice that only alerted the others again and made Luffy chuckle.
"It's all your fault! Stop laughing! Shut up!" Nami hissed grabbing him by the throat and shaking him getting infuriated at how carefree he was being. It was he who had made her let her guard down and talking with him had made her feel completely relaxed. And now, she was worrying about how to survive while he was still making fun of her, looking like he had absolutely no worry in the world and that pissed her off. "Ugh, I don't have time for this. They'll enter any moment and kill me!"
"Why don't you fight them?"
"You don't expect me to fight, do you?! I'm a delicate girl!"
"Nah, I saw you take out a pirate earlier. You knocked him out quite skillfully. You're good with a staff"
"Well, I had my weapon then…and who's fault is it that I don't have one now?" she huffed irritably while walking around the room to look for a good place to hide.
Luffy thought that this was the perfect opportunity to give her her present, so reached into his sling bag and pulled out the shock staff. "Here, you can use this. Consider it a replacement for breaking your staff"
"A baton?" Nami said as she took it. It looked shiny, hi-tech and expensive, so she got curious and started to inspect it. "I'm not used to a baton though. Its reach isn't long eith-"
"Press the button at the bottom"
"Hm?" Nami inspected it closer and found a button and also a dial with 0 to 100 marked on it at the bottom. She first pressed the button and it extended to be as long as herself. "Wow! A retractable bo staff?! This is great!"
She kept pressing the button to contract and extend it, already thinking of ways she could use it to surprise attack someone.
"You ain't seen nothing yet," Luffy grinned as he took the cap off of the staff revealing two iron rods.
"Iron rods?"
"Just poke someone with it"
"Oh? It's like a spear?" she wondered but then noticed that the two iron rods weren't that pointy and became confused. "It's not that pointy or long though… what's the use of poking someone? And what's this dial?"
The door to the room they were in suddenly opened and only then did Nami remember that pirates were out to kill her. She glared at Luffy as his carefree attitude had again made her relaxed and made her forget the situation she was in, but the bastard still had a smile on his face even when more pirates started showing up, and that only infuriated her more.
"She's here!" / "Thief! You'll pay for stealing from us!"
"Oh hey," she smiled at them, putting Luffy at the back of her mind, while thinking of a way to escape, "We can talk this out you know. I've stolen a lo-"
"Nami," Luffy cut in totally unbothered by the pirates entering the room, "Just poke someone while turning the dial up"
"Shut up!" Nami hissed. 'This guy is gonna get me killed!'
It had started off with two pirates but more were coming in as every second passed and soon, more than ten pirates had entered the small room and even more were just outside the doorway.
"A demonstration then," Luffy grinned and suddenly moved behind Nami and took hold of both her hands. One moved her right hand so that the staff would touch the closest pirate, while the other went over her left hand, where his thumb moved over her thumb which was on the dial and he pushed it up.
"Wha?!" Nami was surprised by his sudden action but her body and thoughts froze when she saw the iron rods sparking.
BZZZT!
Her breathing got hitched and she watched in fascinated horror as the man got electrocuted, his whole body convulsing violently as if he was having a seizure. She took a step back unconsciously and leaned onto Luffy's chest as the man continued to get electrocuted for three long seconds before Luffy pushed the dial back down through her thumb. The man fell forwards right at Nami's feet, his mouth open and drooling, his eyes unfocused, and his body jerking slightly from time to time as slight shocks still ran through his body.
"…"
"…"
"Wh…what is this?" Nami said finally breathing again, not even having realized that she had stopped.
"Never seen a taser before?"
"THAT'S NOT A FUCKING TASER!" Nami, along with many pirates too, cried in unison.
"Shishishi it's just an advanced version of a taser," Luffy laughed before looking at Nami, "So? How's this as a replacement for the bo staff I broke earlier? I think it's worth 5 million"
"You can't be serious," Nami said, not believing someone would give her such a strong weapon as a replacement for basically a stick. "You're really giving this to me?"
"Sure am!" Luffy happily said pushing her back onto her feet.
"How dare you?!" a pirate suddenly swung a sword at Nami, hoping to take her by surprise, but Luffy, who was still holding onto her arms, just turned her wrist making the staff rotate and the iron rods touched the man's chin. He, realizing what was about to happen, immediately dropped his sword and started begging, "Please! Please, don-"
Luffy let go of her thumb and smirked, "If you'd like to do it this time"
Nami looked at her hand holding the staff, then at the pirate begging, then at Luffy's face before looking back at the begging pirate, and didn't hesitate a second more as she pushed the dial up. "I sure would"
Nami smiled as the man started convulsing but she lost the smile when she saw that his reaction was much more violent than the earlier man.
"Ah, don't go so high up," Luffy quickly said as he pushed her thumb down lowering the intensity. "The 0 to 100 is the intensity level. Around 50 will kill a normal man, so don't go above that. If you push it too high, that'll happen," he said pointing at the unconscious man who had just dropped to the floor, his skin badly burnt at the point where the iron rods had touched his skin.
Nami gulped, "T-This is too absurd. What kind of weapon is this?"
"Ugh questions questions," Luffy grumbled as he turned her to face the remaining pirates who were frozen in shock, "You can ask all that later. For now, let's take care of the rest of these guys"
Nami saw all the pirates taking a step back and for the first time in her life, she experienced how it felt to instill fear in her enemies… and it was an ecstatic feeling. Her face split into a wide smile as she sparked the shock staff a couple of times making bzzt! bzzt! sounds, which made the pirates gulp in fear and take another step back.
"I like how you think, Luffy. Okay, until we get out of this situation, it's a temporary truce between us" she said as she took a step forward.
"AHHHHHH!" the pirates scrambled trying to run out the door, but Nami chased them feeling powerful. She had won in mind games and trickery sure, but downright scaring her enemies? This was a first. And she loved it. She chased the pirates who tried to run away, electrocuting one after the other.
Luffy hung back watching her fight and was impressed with the way she handled the staff. Even if it was a strong weapon, it meant nothing if she couldn't touch a person with the iron rods. Maybe the first one or two might get caught by surprise, but the others would wizen up and just avoid the iron rods or deflect it away like a sword. If they calmed down and thought about it, the shock staff was weaker than a sword as the only deadly part of it was the tip, unlike a sword which had a whole edge to it.
The pirates soon did realize that the top was the only dangerous part of the staff and circled her, trying to gang up on her, but Nami seemed to have already realized its weakness too and was fast and nimble as she weaved through the pirates. She kept contracting and extending the staff as and when required taking out many by surprise and was twirling it around with minimal movements so that it could reach the pirates. If someone deflected it, she just redirected her staff to the next person before twirling the staff around herself and getting the original target. She was graceful, fast, and dynamic as she was quickly learning how to fight with the shock staff.
She did get in over her head and soon made her first mistake as she let herself wide open for a sword swing, but Luffy quickly took him out already expecting something like that would happen. Nami caught his eyes and he just gave her a grin as if saying, "I got your back. Go crazy!" while he casually punched a guy's face in and she nodded back with a matching grin of her own understanding that he was strong and had her back.
She made many more mistakes, which Luffy took care of, but she improved quickly and made lesser and lesser mistakes as the fight progressed. She had come out of the room by the end and was taking out the ones in the corridor and just five minutes since the first pirate got electrocuted, all of them were either down or had run away.
Nami panted with an ecstatic smile on her face, more tired at the heightened feelings of excitement rather than tiredness, as she stood above the unconscious bodies of enemy pirates. 'I did this?' she thought in disbelief. She had a hard time in just one-on-one physical fights before and usually relied on surprise attacks to win, but right now, she had taken out more than 20 pirates in less than 5 minutes. She couldn't even have dreamed of something like this in her wildest imagination.
She also acknowledged that she had made a lot of mistakes and taken unnecessary risks while fighting which would have gotten her killed, but somehow seeing Luffy with a casual smile looking out for her back and taking out any pirate who attacked her blindspot like it was nothing, she had trusted him and she was too lost in the feelings of ecstasy as she took out enemies that she had even forgotten that Luffy was a pirate.
Luffy's smile hadn't faded ever since he had spotted her and it only widened more now as he saw her happy face. The moment he had seen the shock staff on Reiju's ship, he wanted Nami to have it and had specifically gotten it from Reiju for her sake. And watching her ecstatic smile now, he was glad he did. Until Usopp made her climatact, she could use that as her weapon, and Usopp could even make a better climatact if he studied how the staff worked and maybe even incorporate some elements into his own weapons, thereby increasing the battle prowess of two of the weaker members of the crew. He had lots of ideas of how he could make his crew stronger in their own fighting styles, and this was just one of them.
"This. Is. So. Amazing!" Nami actually started excitedly jumping in place when her joy became too much to hold in. She suddenly turned to Luffy and got right up in his face while grabbing his shoulders, "How the hell does something like this exist?! Did you make this?! How does it work?! Are you actually giving this to me?! No wait, I don't care what you say, this is mine! I'm not parting with it no matter wh-"
"Okay okay slow down," Luffy chuckled as he cut her off, "Too many questions"
She didn't stop though and continued with excitement, "Hey, let's team up! You and me! I saw you looking out for my back, so I know you're quite strong yourself. I'll be going to the Grand Line soon, so I could use a tough guy like you. We make a good team, so we can steal all we want from the bigger pirates there and make a fortune together! What do you say?!"
"Since you're going to the Grand Line, you know how to navigate?"
Nami puffed her chest out proudly, "I'm the best navigator you'll ever find! I love the seas!"
"Great! Then join my crew!"
Nami suddenly lost her enthusiasm and groaned burying her face in her hands, "How did I forget that? You're a pirate… Forget I said an-"
They were interrupted when a boom sounded and suddenly Nami's world went chaotic as splinters of wood exploded in her face. She realized that someone had just shot a cannon from the outside and that she was right in the middle of the blast zone, about to die. At least, that's what she thought as she saw broken wood coming at her, but the next moment, she found herself in Luffy's embrace as he shielded her from all the debris and the next instant, she saw that they were out on the upper deck with the sky above their head.
Luffy let her go and she looked around at the sky for a second before looking back at Luffy, "Ho-how do you keep doing that?"
"Do what?"
"Quit playing dumb!" she snapped, "You know exactly what I'm asking about! The crazy thing where you somehow appear in another place instantly!"
"Shishishi that can wait. There are pirates firing cannons at us"
It was only then that she saw the other pirate ship aiming all its cannons at them. Many of the pirates pointed at her yelling "Ahh! It's that witch! She'll shock you!"
After seeing Nami electrocute a bunch of people, looked like the remaining pirates who ran away went to the other ship and were now firing cannons at them, scared out of their minds. A part of her was happy that she had instilled that much fear in those pirates, but another part was thinking of how to escape.
"Can you do the thing again?" Nami asked looking at Luffy, who just watched as they aimed the cannons right at them and fired without warning. Nami slouched down but kept an eye on Luffy thinking he would again grab her and do his thing where he instantly appears somewhere else, but her eyes widened in shock when he didn't move and waited for the cannonball to come to him. 'Did he freeze in fear?!'
Nami watched in horror as the cannonball was about to hit him, but he just jumped and grabbed the cannonball with his bare hands. He then turned, the projectile turning with him and basically reversed the cannonball's trajectory a full 360 degrees, throwing it back towards the pirate ship before landing back on deck. She gawked not believing what she had just seen and turned her gaze towards the pirate ship where all the pirates had their jaws on the ground. It was only for a second though as the cannonball Luffy had thrown back made impact right in their cannon deck, which was followed by a chain reaction of an explosion, which blew up the ship.
"They really need to learn to keep fire sources away from gunpowder huh?"
Not hearing any answer, he turned to her and found she was staring at him in disbelief with her mouth open. "Hm? What's wrong?"
The nonchalant way he was acting after doing what he did with the cannonball just pissed her off. "The hell do you mean what's wrong?! You just redirected a cannonball with your bare hands! That's crazy! How did you do that?!"
Taken aback at her outrage he didn't know what to say to her. "Um well, you just hold your hand up like this… and then when you catch the cannonball, you grip it tight and just twist your wrist like this…and then its momentum will push you back, so you keep your elbows lose and one leg tight so that it'll make you turn and do a 360 degree turn like this… and then you just let it go…I guess?"
"…THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW IT!" Nami lost it and smacked him on the head. The first of many smacks throughout their lives.
"Hey! What was that for? I just told you what I did"
"Normal people can't do that! Come to think of it, you're too fast too! What are you?!"
"…Human?"
"Ugh, you're so infuriating to talk to…"
"And you're so funny! Are you always so high-strung and snappy?"
"It's your damn fault!" she snapped again making Luffy laugh, which only infuriated her further and she started smacking him, which only made him laugh harder.
Nami huffed not able to understand why he was so happy even when he was getting hit by her. When she had reflexively hit him just a few seconds ago, she had thought that that was it and she would die for offending him, but the smile on his face never faded. He had a disarming quality about him which had made her relaxed around him and that's also the reason she kept forgetting he was a damn pirate. Or rather, she didn't want to believe that he was a pirate. He didn't seem bad at all with absolutely no malice in him, and she didn't want to believe that he was doing a deceiving act the whole time.
She sighed getting confused at her own thoughts and when her eyes landed on the bag of treasure she had filled in the treasury room out on deck, she realized that Luffy had again brought the treasure with him and looked at him suspiciously.
"Hey, you're not getting any treasure! I stole it fair and square"
"Sure, I don't care. You can have it"
"…Then why are you here? Aren't you here to steal from an enemy pirate? And why did you blow up the ship?"
"It was a mistake. They were firing at the village, so I just threw a cannonball back at them and boom! the ship exploded. Just like what happened now"
"…So what if they were firing at a village? Why would a scumbag pirate like you care?"
"I'm not a scumbag pirate, I'm a pirate"
"All pirates are scumbags!"
"Yeah yeah whatever," Luffy shrugged the topic off knowing she wouldn't budge so soon. He looked towards the island and saw that Makino was standing at the shore waiting for him. He also saw Marine ships in the far distance coming towards them, so decided it was time to leave.
"Hey Nami, I'm heading to the Grand Line soon and looking for a navigator too. Join my crew!"
"I already told you! No way in hell am I becoming a pirate!"
"Nope, you're joining"
"No, I'm not! I'm a pirate thief! I steal from pirates! I'll never become a damn pirate!"
"C'mon, you yourself said you wanted to team up. Both of us team up, or you join my crew, the end result is the same of us being together right? So, stick with me," Luffy said as he brought a hand up for a handshake, "What do you say?"
Nami really did want to act like she was joining his crew, get on his ship, steal all his treasure and run away. He also had the shock staff and seeing how casually he had given it to her, she thought that he might have more weapons like it, and if he did, she wanted to get her hands on them. But she was hesitating seeing how strong he was. If she offended him by mistake, her life would be over… but then again, she could also use his strength. Grand Line was a big risk as she didn't know what to expect and if she had someone strong like him, she could be safer.
She pondered over his offer a bit more but sticking with him only had upsides, with the only downside being that he was strong and could potentially hurt her. She knew she couldn't always play it safe and had to take risks sometimes, and this situation was definitely where she would gain a lot if she took a risk. Besides, Luffy himself didn't seem like a bad person at all, and she kept forgetting he was a pirate judging by his behaviour.
"I also have to pay you back for almost killing you…" Luffy said when she kept thinking and didn't answer.
"Hah!" Nami scoffed, "I'm not delusional enough to think you'll have a billion berries, let alone give it to someone else"
"Challenge accepted!" Luffy grinned, "I don't have it but I can one day get that much"
"Sure you can," Nami rolled her eyes obviously not believing him. "Well anyway, I think it'll be beneficial for me if I stick with you, so let's just say that I'm temporarily joining you," Nami said slapping his palm, "But I get 70% of what all we steal"
"Nami," Luffy almost vibrated with excitement, "Other than enough for food supplies, you can have the rest of the treasure"
"…what?"
"Yeah, you can have it all"
'Does this guy have a huge crew that takes a lot of money to feed?' she thought suspiciously. "How many members you got?"
"Just you"
"…Huh?"
"Makino is with us for a while, but she's just accompanying me for a month. So, three of us for now"
"...what?" Nami was utterly confused.
Luffy saw the Marine ships coming closer and pulled her along, "Marine ships incoming. Let's go before they get here"
"Uh right," Nami said snapping out of her confusion. They quickly got in a dinghy and rowed towards the island where Makino was waiting at the docks, along with a few townspeople and the kids Luffy had befriended the previous day.
"Big bro Luffy!" the kids all jumped at him hugging him while he chuckled patting their heads while Nami watched in bewilderment.
"Took you long enough," Makino said as she curiously studied the orange-haired girl. "And who's this cute girl you've got here?"
"Makino, meet Nami! My navigator!"
"I'm just temporarily teaming up with you!"
"Shishishishi"
Makino just giggled seeing the happy smile on Luffy's face and studied Nami with interest. 'So she's the one he was looking for'
"Ah, is everything okay in the village? We need to leave now" Luffy said as he let the kids go from his hands.
"You're going already?!" the kids whined and Luffy just ruffled their hair and placated them, telling them he had to leave because he was on an adventure.
Ten minutes later, Luffy, Makino and Nami were sailing away on a sailboat as they waved goodbye to the townspeople. The sailboat even had a cabin on it and it was the boat Luffy and Makino had bought on the first island they had stopped at and were using ever since.
"Thank you, Big bro Luffy! Big sis Makino! Bye!" the kids and even some townspeople yelled as they sailed away and the two waved back while Nami watched on with confusion.
"Take care!"
—
"So, let me get this straight" Nami sighed looking at Luffy and Makino sitting across from her, "You set out on your journey to become the Pirate King around two weeks ago and and I'm your first crewmate?"
"…you're really slow on the uptake huh?" Luffy said shaking his head.
"Shut it! I understand it but it's just so absurd, that's all"
"Why though? Everyone starts at one point or another. My journey just happened to start very recently"
"…" Nami had no rebuke for that and just sighed. 'There goes my plan to steal from him… oh well, at least I don't have to worry about many pirates…' "Okay fine, forget that… what was with the townspeople back at the island. They were all thanking you?"
"Uh-huh"
"Why?"
"I told you, I protected them and took out those pirates"
"You call yourself a pirate and yet, you protect a town from other pirates? That's not normal!"
Luffy just shrugged not saying anything and Nami huffed with irritation. She just couldn't understand what his goals were as he didn't seem to have looted anything from the island and she didn't know why a pirate would do what he did. She turned to the other occupant of the boat and found the green-haired woman resting her head on her hand that was propped up on her knees, watching them with a happy smile.
"Um hi?"
"Oh hello," Makino spoke with her for the first time, just enjoying the two's banter until then. "Nice to meet you, I'm Makino"
"Yes, hello. I'm Nami. So what are you supposed to be?"
"Oh don't mind me. I'm just here to spend some time with Luffy, that's all"
"…I see?"
"Anyway Nami," Luffy changed the topic, "Let's set sail to Alvida pirates!"
"Huh? You're going to her too?"
'Ah crap, my first mistake…at least I lasted so long without a slip-up' he patted himself on the back and told her the story he had come up with in advance.
"Yep"
"Why?"
"I'm kinda taking out all the pirates in this region"
"…"
"…"
"…Why?"
"Reputation. My bounty will be higher if I take out many pirates"
"And why the hell would you want a bounty?!"
"What kind of pirate doesn't have a bounty, Nami? Are you stupid?"
"Don't call me stupid! You're the stupid one!"
"Shishishishi"
Makino was also giggling and that only made Nami huff in anger, but she calmed herself down. This was good for her as she didn't have to convince him to steal from pirates at least. She suddenly perked up with an idea, "Ah if you want to take pirates out, then there's a close one here. We can go to them before Alvida"
"You mean the Bulldog pirates?" Luffy asked in amusement.
"…Yeah. How did you know?"
"We just came from an island they attacked," Makino informed, "Those pirates started attacking the village while we were there, so Luffy took them out"
"You took them out?! I was going to steal from them!"
"But they started attacking the village… so I had no choice"
Nami groaned not able to argue with him. She actually wasn't going to target the Bulldog pirates as they didn't have much and she didn't want to spend time on them, but now that she had the shock staff and also Luffy, she thought she could take them out and steal from them in less than an hour.
She surprised herself with her own thought process. Just an hour ago, she was all about how to trick or steal without ever getting caught by making meticulous plans, but now, she was casually saying that she wanted to take out an entire pirate crew and then take everything they had.
"And their treasure?" she asked wondering if he had taken it.
"Umm, I don't know? I didn't bother… maybe the villagers got it"
Her eyes twitched as she also had to accept this new reality where pirates wanted to protect innocent people instead of looting them. But still, she didn't think he was being truthful and thought he had some ulterior motives she didn't know about yet. She sighed letting that go and focused on her next target - The Alvida Pirates.
"Okay, first Alvida pirates and then I know where we can get a map to the Grand Line"
"Okay great"
Nami leaned back and thought about their previous conversation. "So, let's continue where we left off. What did you mean when you said I could have all the treasure we steal apart from enough for food supplies?"
"Exactly what it means…" Luffy trailed off, "Does that sentence have some other meaning I don't get?"
Before Nami could blow up at him, Makino interjected, "Stop teasing her so much, Luffy. You know exactly why she's having a hard time believing your words"
"That's right!" Nami agreed, "You're the one saying strange things!"
"Okay okay…well, I did mean that literally. Not sure what else to tell ya"
"You'll have to get used to his strangeness," Makino said with a smile. "Our idea of a pirate is very different from what you might know"
Nami hummed, not wanting to argue with someone who seemed as sweet as Makino, but she didn't trust her either. 'There's some ulterior motive here I don't know about…or he's just infatuated with me' she thought recalling how happy he seemed to be around her. Either way, she was going to stick with him for a while as it really did seem beneficial to her.
—
'The two sure have a weird relationship' was the conclusion Nami came to as she saw Luffy and Makino interacting over the whole day. They seemed like close friends, but also like siblings, but also like a mother and son. She had made small talk with them and found that Makino was a barmaid and her only response to why she was accompanying a pirate was 'I just wanted to spend some time with Luffy'
Either way, she didn't care much and was much more interested in the shock staff and had spent the majority of the day getting used to it. It was such a powerful weapon that she even had the thought of beating Arlong with it, but images of battleships getting destroyed flashed in her mind and she knew it would be impossible. Even if she got him by surprise, all he needed was a second before he would just jump back and break contact. She shook those thoughts away and was just happy that she could at least defeat normal pirates with it by her side.
"So this needs charge huh?" Nami asked as she twirled the shock staff in her hand.
"Yeah, it's not some magical device" Luffy answered as he cooked noodles. It was night, so they had furled the sails and it was Luffy's turn to cook that night. They had bought a portable stove, a few pans and other basic cooking utensils on Makino's insistence and Makino and Luffy had taken turns cooking for each other over the past two weeks.
"Isn't it useless then? I need to keep charging it? How long does it take?"
"Ah, charging it is a bit different. I'll show you how to charge it when we are on land. Takes like five minutes if I do it, that's all"
"Really?! That's amazing!"
"Who exactly made it?" Makino asked as she watched Luffy cooking with a bit of fascination, still not over how he could cook now.
"A friend made it. I played with it a lot, so she gave it to me"
"You played with this?" Nami asked incredulously.
"Yep!" Luffy said as he took the staff from her and pointed it out at sea. "I would use it like a wand and just go AVADA KEDAVRA!" he yelled as he pushed the dial all the way up and the iron rods sparked just as he said the spell.
"It's Abracadabra idiot"
"That's the magic spell used for tricks. AVADA KEDAVRA! is a Killing Curse"
"huh?"
"Ehh forget it," Luffy sighed before he smiled mischievously, "Speaking of magic, do you know what you call a dog that can do magic?"
"Wait what?" Nami said confused at the random topic change.
"A labracadabra!"
Nami rolled her eyes at him. "Really? Making puns to make me laugh now?"
"It wasn't for you," Luffy chuckled as he watched Makino, who had turned her face away from them and her shoulders were shaking. He had found that Makino loved dad jokes and he didn't fail to tell her at least one per day.
"Really, Makino?" Nami sighed, "Don't laugh at something so stupid"
"Hehehehe it's so funny the way he says it though"
"Shishishi anyway here," Luffy said as the noddles were done and handed it to the two after putting it in a bowl.
"I still can't get over the fact that you can cook now," Makino shook her head, "And make something this good"
Nami tasted the food too and added her own comment, "This is good? Rather than good, I would say it's not bad. There's nothing to complain about, but there's nothing special about it either. It's just…bland I guess. Ahh, but not bland in a bad way either…"
"Exactly," Makino nodded, "I guess since you didn't know him before, it seems like that, but making something 'not bad' is an achievement in and of itself for him"
"Really bad at cooking before huh?" Nami giggled.
Makino also giggled agreeing with her, "The most he had done was roast meat over a fire and even then he couldn't wait for it to cook and eat it raw"
"Wow, so from that to 'okay' cooking? You learned to cook?" Nami asked turning to Luffy.
"Yep! As long as it tasted okay, it was enough for the others, so that's all I learned" Luffy said thinking about the kids at the orphanage from Leo's life.
"Others?" Makino asked.
"Umm… some people I met"
Thankfully, Makino just hummed and let the topic go. Nami could sense the slight tension between the two, but didn't pry nor was she interested. She simply ate the rest but suddenly noticing something on Luffy's wrists, she took a surprised gulp of air and started to choke.
"Hey, you okay?"
"Y-yeah, I'm fine" Nami coughed, her voice quivering as her mind worked overtime to think of ways to escape. 'Nonononono I'm caught in a trap! Shit shit! I shouldn't have let my guard down!'
"Luffy, your cuffs are showing" Makino informed knowing why Nami was suddenly on guard.
"Oh"
"Look, I get that you're a criminal and I don't know what your goal is, but I'm sure we can work something out," Nami said as she slowly backed away in fear. 'All this time, it was an act?! I can't believe it!'
"These are bracelets," Luffy said clicking them off and putting them back on again.
"…"
There was a beat of silence where Nami stared incredulously at his 'bracelets' before looking up into his amused eyes and all tension drained out of her body as she slumped down with a massive sigh of relief.
"Pfft~"
She lunged at him hearing him laugh at her and started to choke him, "Why the hell are you wearing bracelets that look like cuffs, you goddamn idiot?! You almost gave me a heart attack!"
"Shishishishi she really likes to snap at people huh, Makino?"
"Hehe yes, she sure does. And she looks so cute when she snaps too"
"Stop making fun of me, you damn pirates!"
"Not a pirate"
"Damn pirate and his weird mother-like friend!"
"Shishishishi" / "Hehehehehe" / "Argghhhh!"
———o———