Fic post: Absence, chapter 6, 3/3
Sep. 17th, 2009 10:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimesConcludes chapter six of "Fine" "Absence" from here. First part of Chapter 6 is here, where you can find more information about this angsty deathfic.
*
The sky was a bleak gray. It took Nami a few moments to calm down and get steady on her feet again. When she looked up, Franky and Robin had both moved away from the railing on the helm deck, though not in the same direction. Franky was out of sight from the lawn deck, apparently checking out the state of the figurehead, judging from the sounds she heard. Robin was standing close to the helm, arms crossed and back to the islet, looking distant in a Robinlike fashion.
As for Zoro, he’d walked over to the tree and had already sheathed his favourite sword. Now he was tying the other two to his waist.
Franky’s words had been right, Nami could see that now. An act of mercy didn’t have to be a betrayal.
“But...” she mumbled to herself. “Even so...”
“What?” said Zoro, leaning towards the nearest wall instead of coming back by the railing.
Even so, she’d meant to say, Zoro’s words had been right, too. Just letting these guys go as they were might be not as merciful as all that – it could even be a form of cruelty. At the same time, she, too, didn’t really feel like offering them a helping hand.
She didn’t say it, though, she just shrugged inarticulately. Somehow bringing that up just felt way too tiring, right this moment. Strange. She hadn’t really talked much, let alone done anything. Yet she felt almost drained.
Below on the rock, the two leaders of the group were walking over to the baggler, probably guessing that mortal battle might not take place after all.
These people were harmless in themselves, they weren’t even on the enemy side anymore, but still... no. She couldn’t bring herself to even suggest the Strawhats should help them for nothing. But what if they could trade with them? That would be different.
Then again, she doubted the deserters would have anything good enough to trade. Except, perhaps, for information...
She drummed her fingers tap-tap-tap on the railing, and swung the ClimaTact around in a distracted fashion.
But maybe, she thought now, feeling oddly distant, maybe they didn’t need to find out more about the island.
Maybe they didn’t even have to go there.
After all, no-one was forcing them to, after all. It wasn’t too late for her to change her mind and convince her crewmates to do likewise, was it? They could turn the boat around and start following the log pose again, they could trust Luffy to get better on his own... they could...
Don’t be ridiculous, her critical self told the rest of her. Shape up, navigator.
Stupid smart critical self. But she sighed in acknowledgement. Guess I have to.
Down below, Villa had boarded the baggler and was talking to some of the more visibly badly wounded in his crew. Doscaballos had returned to his former spot in front of the Sunny, keeping a watch on the Strawhats. Meanwhile, some Marines had again started to angle from the other side of the boat, while two of them were walking towards the other end of the oblong islet, carrying empty buckets. Probably looking for puddles of rain water, Nami figured. They carefully avoided looking up at the Strawhats, even the Sunny itself.
Footsteps descended the steps from the galley: Nami froze for a moment, but when she turned around she saw it was only Sanji, returning from his long nap on the kitchen table. She breathed out in relief – that’s right, Luffy was sleeping in the boys’ cabin – then glanced down at the islet again.
“You’d better fill him in,” she told Zoro, nodding in Sanji’s direction. “I’m going down there.” Then she grabbed her weapon and leaped over the railing, landing easily on the uneven rock. Zoro let out a small noise of surprise, and there was a reflexively protective “Hunnh?!” from Sanji, but she ignored those as various low-toned mumblings and the occasional small exclamation sounded from her crewmates behind her.
*
She was a little surprised to find Doscaballos sitting on the uneven rock and in the process of mending a torn fishing net.
“My father’s a fisherman,” he explained dryly, noticing her look. He went on to inform her calmly that even if that hadn’t been the case, Marine recruits were often taught skills and trades even after joining up. It was just the deserters’ bad luck that none of them happened to have acquired real carpentry skills.
After they’d talked for a few minutes in a rather stilted, hesitant fashion, Nami had the feeling that of the two ex-Marine leaders, Doscaballos was the better for her to negotiate with. To be sure, there was nothing affable about his manner, nor did he seem particularly open. He was reserved, stiff and matter-of-fact. But he now appeared to make an effort to restrain his earlier wariness and hostile attitude, as well as his protectiveness over his crew. From what Nami had seen, Villa seemed to be more upfront and in-your-face about those things. Both approaches had their merits, but right now she preferred to work with the more diplomatic one. And besides, Nami was similarly stiff and restrained.
For all that, Doscaballos looked ever more suspicious and alarmed the more her slew of questions about the island got detailed and specific, getting into nitty-gritty stuff like reefs and tidal habits and whether there were many poisonous plants. As he came out and asked her if the Strawhats were planning to go back there, and she confirmed it, he started, then stared at her for a long moment. He seemed extremely nonplussed.
“You... but... you’re insane,” he said. “Why would you ever want to do that? To go back to that, that hellhole?”
“Well. We have our reasons,” she said tersely. “Never mind why.”
“Hm.” He paused briefly, then went on slowly, “You’re not... you’re not seriously intending to set up a base there, are you?” For some reason, the idea seemed to alarm him.
“Of course not!” she burst out, then realised she’d been too loud as Sanji popped out in sight over the railing.
“Are you okay, Nami-baby?” he called out anxiously. “Hey, shithead!” he yelled to Doscaballos. “Don’t you dare upset her!”
She gave him a reassuring wave. “I’m perfectly fine, Sanji. Don’t worry.” Then she turned back to the ex-Marine, saying in a cold, but lower tone of voice, “No. We’re not in the least interested in something like that.” The thought made her stomach turn, in fact. “We don’t want to go there,” she added sharply, “it’s just that –” She stopped; annoyed at finding herself saying as much when it was really none of his business. But the notion he’d implied was intolerable. She swallowed tightly, then added with a near-growl, “We lost something important there. Now we need to go back.”
“All... right,” said Doscaballos slowly. “If that’s your story, Cat-Burglar Nami, well… I guess you’re sticking to that. But… if you guys are really going to be that crazy… hm. Maybe we have something you could be interesting in, then.” He rubbed his forehead, looking nervous for the first time. The effect of hope, perhaps.
“Oh?” she said, back to a calm and neutral expression. “And what might that be?”
“Several things,” he muttered. He stopped his work on the fishing net and put it carefully to one side. “One of them… well, I guess I can tell you that. The commander – the first one, with the seaking whistle – well, it turned out he kept a log book, and a pretty thick one, too. We found it pretty much by chance in what was left of his tent. It’s got a lot of details about the island, and the seakings, and how to get there.”
“Well. That sounds like it might be useful,” she said cautiously.
He nodded. “Mm. Uh… and there might be something else, too…” but now he was avoiding her look, which immediately raised her suspicions. “I’ll need to speak to Villa about it first, though. We might have had some plans for those things.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Plans? I see. So you do look ahead to something, then.”
“Well…” he began, then stopped as Sanji suddenly jumped down from Sunny, landing right beside her with a grim expression.
“You’re really all right, Nami-baby?” he asked; when she confirmed that was indeed the case, he only nodded and breathed out a “good,” before fishing up a cigarette. His posture was angular and tense.
“This is Doscaballos,” said Nami, nodding in that direction. “He’s one of the leaders of this group. I think he’s a co-captain with that Villa guy. Right?” She turned to the object of her introduction.
“We’re just the leaders,” said Doscaballos, getting up, “since the guys elected us right before we set out. Pirates have captains; plus it’s a Marine rank. But we’re neither. So.” He put his hands in his pockets, looking over at the cook. “And you’re Blackleg Sanji.”
“Yeah. I remember you from back then,” Sanji said, lighting his cigarette. “You had a shithead for a lieutenant.”
“That I did,” Doscaballos acknowledged calmly.
“Zoro filled you in, right?” Nami asked Sanji.
“Yup. Well… more Robin-honey, really...” He shrugged, giving her a brief smile, but still looked rather wound up.
“Good.” She told him what Doscaballos had said about the log book, while making clear she didn’t yet know if this was true or not. Then she asked, “Sanji, how are we in stocks right now? If this thing exists, can we trade these guys some stuff for it? I’m thinking water, particularly.”
He gave her a surprised look, opening his mouth for a moment, then closed it again. Was he thinking, ‘Why don’t you just steal it?’ perhaps? That would make sense – but then he nodded again. Maybe he understood.
“Well…” He puffed on his cigarette, consideringly. “Depends on how long it takes to get there, of course” – he glanced at Nami, but she only shrugged in a “who knows?” way – “but if it’s within a week, no problem. We’re fine with food right now, except for meat. And we’ve got water to spare. Especially after the storm last night.” He was referring to Franky’s ingenious system of rain slides and pipes leading to filtered water cisterns.
“It is mostly water we need,” Doscaballos admitted cautiously. “We still have some bread and dried fruit, and we can get fish from the sea anytime.”
“Well, I’ll have to see the book first, of course,” said Nami. “By the way.” She spun the ClimaTact around a few twirls. “What’s the other thing you mentioned before?”
“What other thing what?” said a voice behind her.
“Ah, there you are,” said Doscaballos, nodding to his co-leader as Sanji and Nami turned around.
“And who the hell are you?” said Sanji.
Villa gave him a long, weary look. “Pietro di Villa is what they call me, since that’s where I’m from,” he said. “Or just plain Villa. I know she’s Nami the Cat Burglar from her bounty poster, but who the hell are you, suit-boy?”
Sanji got a red glare in his eye, but before he could start replying, Doscaballos said, “He’s Blackleg Sanji. Cool down, Villa. I told you about him, right?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Villa shot Sanji a coolly appraising look, then shrugged. “I see. Well, everyone knows Lieutenant Guildford’s an asshole. Or was, possibly.”
“Villa.” Doscaballos voice was low-toned and serious. “They’re going back there.”
Pietro di Villa blinked. “What… They are? Really?” He looked stunned, staring at Sanji and Nami, who nodded silently at this. “Are you nuts?” he burst out, then swerved back to Doscaballos. “Are they going to…”
“No, we’re not going to set up a damn base there!” Nami snapped.
“Even if they were, does it really matter to us, either way?” said Doscaballos. “I mean…” he sighed, “it was a pretty far-fetched plan to begin with.”
Nami’s eyes darted from one to the other. “All right, you’ve got to explain what the hell you’re talking about,” she said, irritated and impatient.
“Well, briefly, we knew odds of us surviving aren’t that high, especially if we have to sail for long on the open sea, or if we run into Marine troops,” said Villa. “Unless it was a small contingent, ‘cause contrary to what you might think we aren’t exactly all that weak. But we’re human.”
Sanji twitched at that, muttering, “Go on,” harshly. Villa looked a bit surprised and annoyed, but seemed to control himself.
And he did go on. “We also figure most pirates wouldn’t be interested in negotiation either, but some might. So. None of us would ever want to go back there again, not even for an hour, but… people who’ve never been there wouldn’t get what a fuckin’ awful place it is.” He shuddered briefly; his co-leader grimaced.
“We figured some people might be interested in using it for a base. It’s a remote place, the layout of the island makes it easy to spot any arrivals, and to defend against them – the biggest obvious problem is the seakings, but if you can find ways to make them ignore you, or even work with you… And that’s where the log book comes in. The old commander had that whistle that helped control those things, but he also wrote down lots of stuff on them. Maybe enough to manipulate them, I dunno.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t really care one way or the other. Well, he was a mutineer, and had been sentenced to a penal battalion before that, Nami thought. Still she wondered if he was really as sanguine at the thought of helping out unknown bigshot pirates as he seemed.
“We didn’t have to try out the advice in the book,” said Doscaballos, since the baggler has a seastone bottom like all Marine vessels. So we were really safer in the water than on land.”
“Yep,” said Villa. “Anyway, I still think anyone would be nuts to want that, but if we could buy some security for us that way, might be worth a try. So we brought the log book and the eternal pose even though we’re never gonna use it ourselves. Never thought you of all people would be willing to help us in return for them, though…”
Sanji breathed in too much and started to cough.
“Wait, what did you just say?” said Nami slowly.
“The log book and… what now?” said Sanji, throwing his cig away.
Doscaballos and Villa exchanged looks, then they both pretty much sighed, and Doscaballos explained, “We don’t have a log pose, but we’ve got an eternal pose set on that island.”
“Yeah, but we’re not trading that for water or even ship repair,” said Villa. “It was fucking hard to get hold of. Good friend of mine got blown up for trying.” His face looked even stonier than before when he said it, and his voice was thicker and harsher. Nami didn’t doubt he was telling the truth, and yet… somewhere in his eyes there was a hint of something calculating. A negotiator’s look, holding out for more.
She met it with one of her own best haggling faces. “Yeah? Well, how would we even know it’s the right thing? For all we know, even that log book you keep going on about could be a falsification.”
“So it could,” said Villa calmly. “And whatever you give us might be poisoned – or, if we’re talking repairs, those could be faulty in a way we wouldn’t realise until it was too late and the ship’s a complete sieve.”
“Hey, you!” snapped Sanji loudly. “Don’t talk to Nami-baby like that, bastard! You shitheads should be fucking grateful we’re even talking to you and willing to hand you anything at all.” He was trembling with anger now, Nami noticed distantly, as she had been on the Sunny earlier.
Villa shrugged, again. “I guess we should,” he said blandly. “Then again, while you guys obviously don’t want much to do with us, the same thing kinda goes for us, see? You didn’t stab us in the back like the brass did, you were honest enemies – but you still took down a lot of us. And if you’re planning on just stealing what’s ours… well, at least we can say we’ll go down fighting.”
“And then we’ll throw the stuff you want into the sea,” said Doscaballos, “before you can find them. The rest of the crew is with us on that.”
“I see…” said Nami slowly. But then she abruptly broke off and turned away. “I guess we’re done here, then,” she announced crisply. “Bring the book and we’ll give you some supplies – and if you ask us real nicely and want to tell us everything else you know about the island, I might ask Franky if he feels like repairing the leaks in your ship. I can’t guarantee he’ll accept, though. Let’s go, Sanji.”
She started to walk off, Sanji in tow. They’d reached the side of the ship when there was a sharp cry of “Wait!” behind them.
“All right, all right, Thunder Girl,” said Villa. She turned and gave him a dry look. “It’s the log pose,” Villa went on. “That’s what we want, okay? Your normal one for our eternal. That’s fair, right?”
”What?” Sanji snarled. ”Some shitty nerve you have. Forget it! Right, Nami?”
Nami was looking steadily at the two leaders. Her eyes narrowed.
“Nami...?” Sanji’s voice trailed off, sounding uncertain and worried.
She shook her head. Couldn’t he see these guys were serious? They were playing for high stakes, and while they wanted to improve the survival of their men, they knew the Strawhats didn’t want to kill them anymore. That, unfortunately, gave them an advantage.
Of course, the Strawhats didn’t need the eternal pose. They could get by without it. It might take them weeks, especially if the weather was unfriendly, but they’d get there eventually.
Probably.
Maybe.
She fingered her log pose – their log pose – slowly. This was the invaluable tool given to her by old man Crocus by Reverse Mountain, right after they’d entered the Grand Line and met Laboon. Crocus had given her a much-needed lesson on the fundamentals of Grand Line navigation, something that hadn’t been found in any book she’d seen in East Blue. Then he’d given them his log pose when Sanji broke the ones they’d gotten from Vivi and her Baroque Works partner. An unexpected gift, like so many they’d received since then.
They had sailed three quarters’ of the distance around the world using this log pose. It had pointed them to Whiskey Peak, to Little Garden, Drum Kingdom, Alabasta: it had taken them upwards to Skypiea, down to Longring Longland, to Water 7… Then, for an unusually long time, it had pointed to Fishman Island – although part of that time it hadn’t been used, after the great split-up when they’d all been reduced to trusting vivrecards instead. And it had gone on leading them to different islands in the New World, finally showing the way to that one. Now it pointed away from there, away from the place they were going back to. To some new unknown place, to adventure and the future.
She felt no hesitation when she pulled it off.
“Here it is,” she said, her voice sounding both thin and cold as she held it up towards Villa and Doscaballos.
“N-Nami,” whispered Sanji, but when she glanced at him, he swallowed and nodded at her.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled. He was looking pale, though.
The two ex-Marines were looking pale, too. “All- all right,” Doscaballos said weakly, after a moment or two. “We’ll go get it. The log book, too. And we’ll tell you what we know – we’ll ask all the guys to tell you.”
“Get the eternal pose right now,” she said sharply, “and we can sort the rest of it out later.” Her left wrist felt very odd and exposed, too light without the familiar weight of the log pose.
Villa only nodded, almost looking frightened at this unexpected chance. He hurried over to the baggler and re-appeared very quickly, after little more than a minute, only making himself slow down the last few steps before reaching Nami.
Holding out the precious artifact, he let Nami examine it for a moment, but without letting go of the string it was tied to. She touched it, shook it around a bit, felt its weight. Then she gave him their log pose with one hand and took the eternal pose with the other.
“Hey…?” said a far-too-familiar voice from behind her, from the Sunny. She froze on the spot. “What are you doing, Nami?” the voice continued.
Nami looked up to see her captain standing there, looking utterly confused.
“What- what does it look like I’m doing?” she said heavily, feeling sick. “I’m – I’m giving these guys our log pose. That’s what.”
“Huh?? But- what – why?” He blinked at her, quite befuddled. “Don’t we need that to sail by?”
“I swapped it for an eternal pose instead.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s pretty hard to sail backwards in the Grand Line,” Nami heard her voice say with little expression, though there was a sour feeling in her mouth.
“Huh? That’s just crazy, Nami – HEY!” She flinched, but it was the ex-Marines that Luffy was looking closer at, first Doscaballos and Villa, then the rest of the crew in the baggler. They all looked quite alarmed at his attention, many of them backing a step or two. Luffy’s face started to look angry. “I REMEMBER THEM!” he yelled. “GET AWAY FROM THEM, NAMI!” And before she’d had the chance to say anything more, two long rubber arms had shot out and grabbed both her and Sanji, dropping them on lawn deck three seconds later.
“What did you do that for?” Luffy sounded mostly confused and scared now, but there was anger there as well. “Those guys - !! They’re enemies, you can’t trust them! They could’ve hurt you real bad!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her anxiously for a few moments, prompting a muted “Hey!” from Sanji, scrambling up from where Luffy had dropped him and moving closer. But Luffy soon stopped as Nami kept looking back at him stonily without moving. He let go of her and stepped back.
“They couldn’t, Luffy,” she said. “I’m stronger than that. And besides, they mutinied.” Just like us, she thought. “They’re not Marines any longer.”
Luffy’s hands were dangling uselessly by his sides. His expression was still very bewildered, but there was something else in it now, something troubled and lost and betrayed. Then his face set, growing harder.
“Nami,” he said quietly. “What do you mean by ‘going backwards’?”
----
To be continued in Chapter 7, part one
*
The sky was a bleak gray. It took Nami a few moments to calm down and get steady on her feet again. When she looked up, Franky and Robin had both moved away from the railing on the helm deck, though not in the same direction. Franky was out of sight from the lawn deck, apparently checking out the state of the figurehead, judging from the sounds she heard. Robin was standing close to the helm, arms crossed and back to the islet, looking distant in a Robinlike fashion.
As for Zoro, he’d walked over to the tree and had already sheathed his favourite sword. Now he was tying the other two to his waist.
Franky’s words had been right, Nami could see that now. An act of mercy didn’t have to be a betrayal.
“But...” she mumbled to herself. “Even so...”
“What?” said Zoro, leaning towards the nearest wall instead of coming back by the railing.
Even so, she’d meant to say, Zoro’s words had been right, too. Just letting these guys go as they were might be not as merciful as all that – it could even be a form of cruelty. At the same time, she, too, didn’t really feel like offering them a helping hand.
She didn’t say it, though, she just shrugged inarticulately. Somehow bringing that up just felt way too tiring, right this moment. Strange. She hadn’t really talked much, let alone done anything. Yet she felt almost drained.
Below on the rock, the two leaders of the group were walking over to the baggler, probably guessing that mortal battle might not take place after all.
These people were harmless in themselves, they weren’t even on the enemy side anymore, but still... no. She couldn’t bring herself to even suggest the Strawhats should help them for nothing. But what if they could trade with them? That would be different.
Then again, she doubted the deserters would have anything good enough to trade. Except, perhaps, for information...
She drummed her fingers tap-tap-tap on the railing, and swung the ClimaTact around in a distracted fashion.
But maybe, she thought now, feeling oddly distant, maybe they didn’t need to find out more about the island.
Maybe they didn’t even have to go there.
After all, no-one was forcing them to, after all. It wasn’t too late for her to change her mind and convince her crewmates to do likewise, was it? They could turn the boat around and start following the log pose again, they could trust Luffy to get better on his own... they could...
Don’t be ridiculous, her critical self told the rest of her. Shape up, navigator.
Stupid smart critical self. But she sighed in acknowledgement. Guess I have to.
Down below, Villa had boarded the baggler and was talking to some of the more visibly badly wounded in his crew. Doscaballos had returned to his former spot in front of the Sunny, keeping a watch on the Strawhats. Meanwhile, some Marines had again started to angle from the other side of the boat, while two of them were walking towards the other end of the oblong islet, carrying empty buckets. Probably looking for puddles of rain water, Nami figured. They carefully avoided looking up at the Strawhats, even the Sunny itself.
Footsteps descended the steps from the galley: Nami froze for a moment, but when she turned around she saw it was only Sanji, returning from his long nap on the kitchen table. She breathed out in relief – that’s right, Luffy was sleeping in the boys’ cabin – then glanced down at the islet again.
“You’d better fill him in,” she told Zoro, nodding in Sanji’s direction. “I’m going down there.” Then she grabbed her weapon and leaped over the railing, landing easily on the uneven rock. Zoro let out a small noise of surprise, and there was a reflexively protective “Hunnh?!” from Sanji, but she ignored those as various low-toned mumblings and the occasional small exclamation sounded from her crewmates behind her.
*
She was a little surprised to find Doscaballos sitting on the uneven rock and in the process of mending a torn fishing net.
“My father’s a fisherman,” he explained dryly, noticing her look. He went on to inform her calmly that even if that hadn’t been the case, Marine recruits were often taught skills and trades even after joining up. It was just the deserters’ bad luck that none of them happened to have acquired real carpentry skills.
After they’d talked for a few minutes in a rather stilted, hesitant fashion, Nami had the feeling that of the two ex-Marine leaders, Doscaballos was the better for her to negotiate with. To be sure, there was nothing affable about his manner, nor did he seem particularly open. He was reserved, stiff and matter-of-fact. But he now appeared to make an effort to restrain his earlier wariness and hostile attitude, as well as his protectiveness over his crew. From what Nami had seen, Villa seemed to be more upfront and in-your-face about those things. Both approaches had their merits, but right now she preferred to work with the more diplomatic one. And besides, Nami was similarly stiff and restrained.
For all that, Doscaballos looked ever more suspicious and alarmed the more her slew of questions about the island got detailed and specific, getting into nitty-gritty stuff like reefs and tidal habits and whether there were many poisonous plants. As he came out and asked her if the Strawhats were planning to go back there, and she confirmed it, he started, then stared at her for a long moment. He seemed extremely nonplussed.
“You... but... you’re insane,” he said. “Why would you ever want to do that? To go back to that, that hellhole?”
“Well. We have our reasons,” she said tersely. “Never mind why.”
“Hm.” He paused briefly, then went on slowly, “You’re not... you’re not seriously intending to set up a base there, are you?” For some reason, the idea seemed to alarm him.
“Of course not!” she burst out, then realised she’d been too loud as Sanji popped out in sight over the railing.
“Are you okay, Nami-baby?” he called out anxiously. “Hey, shithead!” he yelled to Doscaballos. “Don’t you dare upset her!”
She gave him a reassuring wave. “I’m perfectly fine, Sanji. Don’t worry.” Then she turned back to the ex-Marine, saying in a cold, but lower tone of voice, “No. We’re not in the least interested in something like that.” The thought made her stomach turn, in fact. “We don’t want to go there,” she added sharply, “it’s just that –” She stopped; annoyed at finding herself saying as much when it was really none of his business. But the notion he’d implied was intolerable. She swallowed tightly, then added with a near-growl, “We lost something important there. Now we need to go back.”
“All... right,” said Doscaballos slowly. “If that’s your story, Cat-Burglar Nami, well… I guess you’re sticking to that. But… if you guys are really going to be that crazy… hm. Maybe we have something you could be interesting in, then.” He rubbed his forehead, looking nervous for the first time. The effect of hope, perhaps.
“Oh?” she said, back to a calm and neutral expression. “And what might that be?”
“Several things,” he muttered. He stopped his work on the fishing net and put it carefully to one side. “One of them… well, I guess I can tell you that. The commander – the first one, with the seaking whistle – well, it turned out he kept a log book, and a pretty thick one, too. We found it pretty much by chance in what was left of his tent. It’s got a lot of details about the island, and the seakings, and how to get there.”
“Well. That sounds like it might be useful,” she said cautiously.
He nodded. “Mm. Uh… and there might be something else, too…” but now he was avoiding her look, which immediately raised her suspicions. “I’ll need to speak to Villa about it first, though. We might have had some plans for those things.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Plans? I see. So you do look ahead to something, then.”
“Well…” he began, then stopped as Sanji suddenly jumped down from Sunny, landing right beside her with a grim expression.
“You’re really all right, Nami-baby?” he asked; when she confirmed that was indeed the case, he only nodded and breathed out a “good,” before fishing up a cigarette. His posture was angular and tense.
“This is Doscaballos,” said Nami, nodding in that direction. “He’s one of the leaders of this group. I think he’s a co-captain with that Villa guy. Right?” She turned to the object of her introduction.
“We’re just the leaders,” said Doscaballos, getting up, “since the guys elected us right before we set out. Pirates have captains; plus it’s a Marine rank. But we’re neither. So.” He put his hands in his pockets, looking over at the cook. “And you’re Blackleg Sanji.”
“Yeah. I remember you from back then,” Sanji said, lighting his cigarette. “You had a shithead for a lieutenant.”
“That I did,” Doscaballos acknowledged calmly.
“Zoro filled you in, right?” Nami asked Sanji.
“Yup. Well… more Robin-honey, really...” He shrugged, giving her a brief smile, but still looked rather wound up.
“Good.” She told him what Doscaballos had said about the log book, while making clear she didn’t yet know if this was true or not. Then she asked, “Sanji, how are we in stocks right now? If this thing exists, can we trade these guys some stuff for it? I’m thinking water, particularly.”
He gave her a surprised look, opening his mouth for a moment, then closed it again. Was he thinking, ‘Why don’t you just steal it?’ perhaps? That would make sense – but then he nodded again. Maybe he understood.
“Well…” He puffed on his cigarette, consideringly. “Depends on how long it takes to get there, of course” – he glanced at Nami, but she only shrugged in a “who knows?” way – “but if it’s within a week, no problem. We’re fine with food right now, except for meat. And we’ve got water to spare. Especially after the storm last night.” He was referring to Franky’s ingenious system of rain slides and pipes leading to filtered water cisterns.
“It is mostly water we need,” Doscaballos admitted cautiously. “We still have some bread and dried fruit, and we can get fish from the sea anytime.”
“Well, I’ll have to see the book first, of course,” said Nami. “By the way.” She spun the ClimaTact around a few twirls. “What’s the other thing you mentioned before?”
“What other thing what?” said a voice behind her.
“Ah, there you are,” said Doscaballos, nodding to his co-leader as Sanji and Nami turned around.
“And who the hell are you?” said Sanji.
Villa gave him a long, weary look. “Pietro di Villa is what they call me, since that’s where I’m from,” he said. “Or just plain Villa. I know she’s Nami the Cat Burglar from her bounty poster, but who the hell are you, suit-boy?”
Sanji got a red glare in his eye, but before he could start replying, Doscaballos said, “He’s Blackleg Sanji. Cool down, Villa. I told you about him, right?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Villa shot Sanji a coolly appraising look, then shrugged. “I see. Well, everyone knows Lieutenant Guildford’s an asshole. Or was, possibly.”
“Villa.” Doscaballos voice was low-toned and serious. “They’re going back there.”
Pietro di Villa blinked. “What… They are? Really?” He looked stunned, staring at Sanji and Nami, who nodded silently at this. “Are you nuts?” he burst out, then swerved back to Doscaballos. “Are they going to…”
“No, we’re not going to set up a damn base there!” Nami snapped.
“Even if they were, does it really matter to us, either way?” said Doscaballos. “I mean…” he sighed, “it was a pretty far-fetched plan to begin with.”
Nami’s eyes darted from one to the other. “All right, you’ve got to explain what the hell you’re talking about,” she said, irritated and impatient.
“Well, briefly, we knew odds of us surviving aren’t that high, especially if we have to sail for long on the open sea, or if we run into Marine troops,” said Villa. “Unless it was a small contingent, ‘cause contrary to what you might think we aren’t exactly all that weak. But we’re human.”
Sanji twitched at that, muttering, “Go on,” harshly. Villa looked a bit surprised and annoyed, but seemed to control himself.
And he did go on. “We also figure most pirates wouldn’t be interested in negotiation either, but some might. So. None of us would ever want to go back there again, not even for an hour, but… people who’ve never been there wouldn’t get what a fuckin’ awful place it is.” He shuddered briefly; his co-leader grimaced.
“We figured some people might be interested in using it for a base. It’s a remote place, the layout of the island makes it easy to spot any arrivals, and to defend against them – the biggest obvious problem is the seakings, but if you can find ways to make them ignore you, or even work with you… And that’s where the log book comes in. The old commander had that whistle that helped control those things, but he also wrote down lots of stuff on them. Maybe enough to manipulate them, I dunno.”
He shrugged, as if he didn’t really care one way or the other. Well, he was a mutineer, and had been sentenced to a penal battalion before that, Nami thought. Still she wondered if he was really as sanguine at the thought of helping out unknown bigshot pirates as he seemed.
“We didn’t have to try out the advice in the book,” said Doscaballos, since the baggler has a seastone bottom like all Marine vessels. So we were really safer in the water than on land.”
“Yep,” said Villa. “Anyway, I still think anyone would be nuts to want that, but if we could buy some security for us that way, might be worth a try. So we brought the log book and the eternal pose even though we’re never gonna use it ourselves. Never thought you of all people would be willing to help us in return for them, though…”
Sanji breathed in too much and started to cough.
“Wait, what did you just say?” said Nami slowly.
“The log book and… what now?” said Sanji, throwing his cig away.
Doscaballos and Villa exchanged looks, then they both pretty much sighed, and Doscaballos explained, “We don’t have a log pose, but we’ve got an eternal pose set on that island.”
“Yeah, but we’re not trading that for water or even ship repair,” said Villa. “It was fucking hard to get hold of. Good friend of mine got blown up for trying.” His face looked even stonier than before when he said it, and his voice was thicker and harsher. Nami didn’t doubt he was telling the truth, and yet… somewhere in his eyes there was a hint of something calculating. A negotiator’s look, holding out for more.
She met it with one of her own best haggling faces. “Yeah? Well, how would we even know it’s the right thing? For all we know, even that log book you keep going on about could be a falsification.”
“So it could,” said Villa calmly. “And whatever you give us might be poisoned – or, if we’re talking repairs, those could be faulty in a way we wouldn’t realise until it was too late and the ship’s a complete sieve.”
“Hey, you!” snapped Sanji loudly. “Don’t talk to Nami-baby like that, bastard! You shitheads should be fucking grateful we’re even talking to you and willing to hand you anything at all.” He was trembling with anger now, Nami noticed distantly, as she had been on the Sunny earlier.
Villa shrugged, again. “I guess we should,” he said blandly. “Then again, while you guys obviously don’t want much to do with us, the same thing kinda goes for us, see? You didn’t stab us in the back like the brass did, you were honest enemies – but you still took down a lot of us. And if you’re planning on just stealing what’s ours… well, at least we can say we’ll go down fighting.”
“And then we’ll throw the stuff you want into the sea,” said Doscaballos, “before you can find them. The rest of the crew is with us on that.”
“I see…” said Nami slowly. But then she abruptly broke off and turned away. “I guess we’re done here, then,” she announced crisply. “Bring the book and we’ll give you some supplies – and if you ask us real nicely and want to tell us everything else you know about the island, I might ask Franky if he feels like repairing the leaks in your ship. I can’t guarantee he’ll accept, though. Let’s go, Sanji.”
She started to walk off, Sanji in tow. They’d reached the side of the ship when there was a sharp cry of “Wait!” behind them.
“All right, all right, Thunder Girl,” said Villa. She turned and gave him a dry look. “It’s the log pose,” Villa went on. “That’s what we want, okay? Your normal one for our eternal. That’s fair, right?”
”What?” Sanji snarled. ”Some shitty nerve you have. Forget it! Right, Nami?”
Nami was looking steadily at the two leaders. Her eyes narrowed.
“Nami...?” Sanji’s voice trailed off, sounding uncertain and worried.
She shook her head. Couldn’t he see these guys were serious? They were playing for high stakes, and while they wanted to improve the survival of their men, they knew the Strawhats didn’t want to kill them anymore. That, unfortunately, gave them an advantage.
Of course, the Strawhats didn’t need the eternal pose. They could get by without it. It might take them weeks, especially if the weather was unfriendly, but they’d get there eventually.
Probably.
Maybe.
She fingered her log pose – their log pose – slowly. This was the invaluable tool given to her by old man Crocus by Reverse Mountain, right after they’d entered the Grand Line and met Laboon. Crocus had given her a much-needed lesson on the fundamentals of Grand Line navigation, something that hadn’t been found in any book she’d seen in East Blue. Then he’d given them his log pose when Sanji broke the ones they’d gotten from Vivi and her Baroque Works partner. An unexpected gift, like so many they’d received since then.
They had sailed three quarters’ of the distance around the world using this log pose. It had pointed them to Whiskey Peak, to Little Garden, Drum Kingdom, Alabasta: it had taken them upwards to Skypiea, down to Longring Longland, to Water 7… Then, for an unusually long time, it had pointed to Fishman Island – although part of that time it hadn’t been used, after the great split-up when they’d all been reduced to trusting vivrecards instead. And it had gone on leading them to different islands in the New World, finally showing the way to that one. Now it pointed away from there, away from the place they were going back to. To some new unknown place, to adventure and the future.
She felt no hesitation when she pulled it off.
“Here it is,” she said, her voice sounding both thin and cold as she held it up towards Villa and Doscaballos.
“N-Nami,” whispered Sanji, but when she glanced at him, he swallowed and nodded at her.
“It’s okay,” he mumbled. He was looking pale, though.
The two ex-Marines were looking pale, too. “All- all right,” Doscaballos said weakly, after a moment or two. “We’ll go get it. The log book, too. And we’ll tell you what we know – we’ll ask all the guys to tell you.”
“Get the eternal pose right now,” she said sharply, “and we can sort the rest of it out later.” Her left wrist felt very odd and exposed, too light without the familiar weight of the log pose.
Villa only nodded, almost looking frightened at this unexpected chance. He hurried over to the baggler and re-appeared very quickly, after little more than a minute, only making himself slow down the last few steps before reaching Nami.
Holding out the precious artifact, he let Nami examine it for a moment, but without letting go of the string it was tied to. She touched it, shook it around a bit, felt its weight. Then she gave him their log pose with one hand and took the eternal pose with the other.
“Hey…?” said a far-too-familiar voice from behind her, from the Sunny. She froze on the spot. “What are you doing, Nami?” the voice continued.
Nami looked up to see her captain standing there, looking utterly confused.
“What- what does it look like I’m doing?” she said heavily, feeling sick. “I’m – I’m giving these guys our log pose. That’s what.”
“Huh?? But- what – why?” He blinked at her, quite befuddled. “Don’t we need that to sail by?”
“I swapped it for an eternal pose instead.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s pretty hard to sail backwards in the Grand Line,” Nami heard her voice say with little expression, though there was a sour feeling in her mouth.
“Huh? That’s just crazy, Nami – HEY!” She flinched, but it was the ex-Marines that Luffy was looking closer at, first Doscaballos and Villa, then the rest of the crew in the baggler. They all looked quite alarmed at his attention, many of them backing a step or two. Luffy’s face started to look angry. “I REMEMBER THEM!” he yelled. “GET AWAY FROM THEM, NAMI!” And before she’d had the chance to say anything more, two long rubber arms had shot out and grabbed both her and Sanji, dropping them on lawn deck three seconds later.
“What did you do that for?” Luffy sounded mostly confused and scared now, but there was anger there as well. “Those guys - !! They’re enemies, you can’t trust them! They could’ve hurt you real bad!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her anxiously for a few moments, prompting a muted “Hey!” from Sanji, scrambling up from where Luffy had dropped him and moving closer. But Luffy soon stopped as Nami kept looking back at him stonily without moving. He let go of her and stepped back.
“They couldn’t, Luffy,” she said. “I’m stronger than that. And besides, they mutinied.” Just like us, she thought. “They’re not Marines any longer.”
Luffy’s hands were dangling uselessly by his sides. His expression was still very bewildered, but there was something else in it now, something troubled and lost and betrayed. Then his face set, growing harder.
“Nami,” he said quietly. “What do you mean by ‘going backwards’?”
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To be continued in Chapter 7, part one