Chapter Text
“Eh? You met Namizo-kun?”
“It’s just Nami now, apparently. Don’t refer to her so personally.”
Tashigi is honestly a very slow individual, and Smoker groans longsufferingly. Their ship was en route to the Grand Line, and ensigns were all working to catch as much wind as they could on the ever-quiet Grand Line.
“Were you too obsessed with chasing Roronoa, you didn’t even see Burglar Cat and Man Demon jaywalking across town?” he says, irritated.
Tashigi sputters, “I- I’m sorry, Captain Smoker sir!” because honestly, she didn’t, and she’s baffled by that too.
Smoker looks as if he’s contemplating some sort of murder, but he always looks like that so Tashigi just looks down and hopes for the best.
They’ve all seen her wanted poster-- apparently, she was a pirate now, all the way through. But Tashigi found it difficult to see anything but the one she looked up to so much in her budding days on the ship.
She respected Namizo, even after what she’s become.
(“One day, I’ll leave. You’ll want to leave too, one day. Away from these confines, to pursue the true Justice that you really think is right. You’re a good girl after all, I’m sure you’ll be able to go for it.”)
(“Me? Unfortunately, I don’t think Justice is quite my thing. Rules, confines-- they’re necessary, I don’t deny. It’s just where on the scale you want to stand on that depends.”)
(“Liberty is more my drift, if you get me. And if I want to follow a Captain, I want to chose it-- I don’t want to be assigned to one.”)
(Saying so, the crossdresser sets a hand on his bandaged shoulder, looking far away-- at something unattainable, at least for now.)
(Tashigi wouldn’t lie and say she empathizes. But she wrapped her arms around him and held him close-- because she couldn’t bear to see him crumble under the weight of the secrets he didn’t want to disclose.)
Tashigi had suspected, from that day and that strange conversation, that Namizo wasn’t going to remain a Marine under a deck. She didn’t expect the whole other extreme, however… but she’d agonized about this for weeks. It was time to move on.
(She wonders if Namizo had found the liberty he-- no, she sought for.)
Prodding nervously at her sword, she tries her luck, “uhm… is Namizo-kun doing well?”
Smoker immediately slams his hands against the desk with an explosion of “Tashigi, you are NOT getting friendly with a damn pirate I don’t care about the history!” so Tashigi, terrified for her life, scampers out.
“Y- Yes sir!” she squeaks, “I’m sorry! Very sorry! Please excuse me!”
She gets as far away as she can (mentally apologizing to the ensigns that have to deal with his temper now) and slumps to the ground, exhausted.
But she finds herself giggling at the image after the adrenaline runs out.
If Captain Smoker is that temperamental… Namizo must be doing well, then.
(They’re enemies now, so of course she’ll have to draw her blade next time they meet.)
(But secretly, just secretly though… Tashigi is relieved to know Namizo is now free of the chronic weight on his shoulders.)
(The snide smirk she sports on the bounty poster assured as much.)
-
-
“So, according to this, you’re going to die in a year.”
“Huh?”
“I’m just kidding, you’ve only got five months left to live.”
“HUH?!”
Crocus’ sense of humour is not appreciated here, so after three consecutive back-and-forths of a similar nature, Nami stands up and smashes his head in with the Seastone bracelet.
Then they finally have their explanation.
So it goes like this:
The poison has flowed out of his system-- not completely, but all that remains is the remnant weakness that sticks like a scar, clumped and congested within the veins, unable to leave the flow.
And that means the weakness can’t be cleared through natural means.
It’ll only get worse as the work becomes more strenuous, and eventually, it’ll begin to cause muscle weaknesses and trigger organ failures.
For a sailor in the Grand Line, that’s already one hell of a red flag.
All this along with Gin’s crumbling mental health, already compromised physical stature, and the oncoming strife of the Grand Line? A normal man would last about five months at most, and that’s a generous prediction that assumes the patient gets plenty of rest.
“But if you’re a monster of a guy, you’ll probably make it to half a year,” Crocus says, feeling generous. “I mean, Roger’s crew was like that too. Bunch of crazy fools, a hurricane can’t stop them if they laugh it out, apparently.”
Gin doesn’t find that funny at all.
Nami hums at that. “Is there any way to cure this?” she asks. It’s a blood disease at this point, after all-- surely surgery or medicine of some sort should be able to…
“No,” Crocus says, the words filling Nami with dread. The doctor immediately elaborates, “not as far as my knowledge goes, at least. But the Grand Line is vast.”
(There is no illness without a cure. Out there in the Grand Line, it’s only a matter of time, endurance, and knowledge.)
Gin sighs. “I was already prepared to die,” he says.
Of course, he’s frustrated.
“Don’t give up so easily!” Nami says, sharply. “We just have to get a doctor as soon as we can, don’t we. If we can’t find a cure immediately, there are definitely ways to delay the effects. Blood diseases are common, after all. There’s plenty of ways to relieve the symptoms, even if it’s chronic.”
Gin sighs. So he’s going to be an invalid forever?
“I’d rather not be a burden,” he says. He’ll probably be down for days at times, and finding a doctor may be important, but if they don’t find one in time…
“Gin,” Nami speaks up, her voice stern.
She makes sure the man turns to her before she continues.
“I can barely lift my arm right now,” she confesses. “The pain gets worse each second, and honestly? I ducked in here because the breeze really, really hurts.”
And that’s when Gin notices the faint crease in her brows. She kept her wrist rested on her lap, but nothing else touched it. Her breath comes out just a hint shakier than the previous one-- but she takes a quick breath, and it’s stable again.
“It’s not just me,” she says. “Usopp is blind. We forget about it all the time-- but he can’t see a gun if it’s fired right in front of his face. He can sense it, but catch him in a crowd and he’s the easiest target you’ll ever find.”
And that-- is honestly debatable, but true.
“So don’t you dare think an illness is enough to be considered useless on this ship,” she says, her voice low enough to be a threat. “We go through it together. Luffy chose you for what you were, understood?”
Gin takes a moment too long to answer.
“Yeah, I get it,” is all he manages to say.
He bites his lip and he can’t let them go enough to give any more than a grunt, because the tears are spilling from his eyes and he lowers his head, hoping no one looks at him.
But he can’t help it.
Illness isn’t uselessness? Then what on earth is it, because Gin has never done anything except shove a sick crewmate off a rowboat in his life.
If you don’t work, you don’t eat, you don’t earn, and you don’t live. That was the law of the lower world, and Gin’s lived his whole life like that.
(“We go through it together.”)
He doesn’t know how to do that, though.
“Well, for starters,” Nami sighs fondly, “how about you go outside?”
And he does, after wiping away his tears.
He does, and Luffy squeals at the sight of him, barreling into him with all the force of a Gum Gum Rocket that shouldn’t have been used in this narrow piece of land. Gin goes crashing backwards into rock and stray wood pieces, and damn that hurts, but Luffy’s bright smile expels all of the anger that he wanted to let explode.
“Gin!” Luffy cheers, “hey listen to this, Sanji’s being a total asshole! He’s not letting me eat anymore food even though we still have a lot of the cow left! You’re in charge of the storage so tell him I can eat more!”
Gin’s arms are wrapped around Luffy’s-- his captain’s -- back, and just a little, he lets his eyes soften as he squeezes back.
(This crew is childish, and never takes things seriously.)
(But maybe that’s fine.)
"Hey, Captain," he says, and by the way Luffy tenses, the uncommon referral was important to him. "Why did you ask me to come on board?"
Luffy leans back so Gin can look him in the eye. He’s pouting.
"Because I need you on my crew, of course!" He says, even though the only times he's seen Gin are times when he was a traitor, a coward, and a man dying of lethal poison.
For what, he doesn’t ask.
"This ship can’t work without you!" Luffy says, with startling confidence. "You're the nakama of the future Pirate King, you know?"
That’s bullshit, and Gin knows it. The ship would work fine-- well, not at all, seeing as they’re a crazy crew of just six people and a bird and they’re already past the Red Line-- but Gin was not essential.
He didn’t believe he was essential.
But he’s the nakama of the future Pirate King, huh?
That sounds almost foreign to his ears. Yet… it rolled off his tongue so much better, and felt so much more sincere than it had ever done for Krieg’s name.
( Ah , Gin thinks. He feels like crying again.)
(He doesn't though. He just chuckles, and hugs back.)
“No, you’re not allowed to eat more food,” Gin finally says, and Luffy whines loudly, so he snaps back harshly, “you already ate a ton, you idiot."
Luffy whines louder, but he doesn’t let go.
A quartermaster’s role on a ship is to keep the crew in check. If Luffy’s given him the title, then he guesses gotta do his job.
(Huh? When did he officially begin to consider himself the man for the role?)
Gin doesn’t throw his captain off of him. The hug is tight and a little suffocating, but the warmth it brings isn’t unwelcome.
(And maybe-- just maybe-- Gin can let himself enjoy it.)
“Hey Laboon! You want some food too, right? See, he wants some! Let’s share!”
“I said NO!”
-
Miss Wednesday sighs. They’d barely managed to clamber onto their boat and get some distance-- but this was bad news.It’s been much too long since their assignment-- the Unluckies should be here soon.
“For now, let’s go back to Whiskey Peak and--”
She freezes.
Her log pose wasn’t in her pocket.
(When--?!)
“What’s wrong, Miss Wednesday?” Mister Nine asks, unnerved by the awkward pause. Then his jaw drops. “M- Miss Wednesday! Your shoulder!”
She blinks. A look to the side and-- she shrieks .
The Strawhat’s armor-wearing bird flutters carefully from her shoulder onto the boat, pruning herself for a moment before turning back forward to consider the two agents.
“W- w- w- when did it get here?!” they yelp. “It’s a spy! It’s gonna kill us!”
“No, Mister Nine, calm down, it’s just a bird,” Miss Wednesday says, her exasperation breaking her character briefly, “but it’s this bird’s fault we got found in the first place!”
Kinoko caws, because she’s very well aware of that.
“What are you doing here anyways?” Mister Nine says, carefully approaching it. His hand is pecked sharply when he gets too close, so he has no idea what the bird wants.
They’d lost their bazooka to the sea in their panicking scramble, and it was almost embarrassing to know it was because of such a small bird. They’re used to working with a larger one, after all.
“Is it surveilling us and just waiting to report back to its owners?” Miss Wednesday wonders. Kinoko caws twice, and Miss Wednesday quickly notices the problem, “oh, sorry. Are you a she?”
Kinoko nods.
“She might be just watching us for our movements--” Miss Wednesday corrects herself and continues.
“Did you just ask for the pronouns of an avian creature like it was a normal thing to do?”
“Well look at the point here,” she turns the situation back. “She’s an East Blue bird, and they’re naive East Blue pirates, so I think that’ll work against them. We can capture this bird and use it as a hostage. We just have to tell them we’re going to Whiskey Peak and they’ll follow us somehow!”
“That’s a great idea!” Mister Nine says, joyful. “That’ll be something efficient to report back on! We’re in luck… alright, Miss Wednesday, which way?”
Pause.
Miss Wednesday’s face loses all colour.
“I uh,” she fiddles with her fingers, looking anywhere but at her partner right now, “think we lost the Log Pose. Sorry.”
“EH?!”
Miss Wednesday buries her face into her hands, “I’m sorry! I think it was the long-nosed-- I knew it was suspicious that he didn’t search us for weapons…”
“Miss Wednesday, how could you!” Mister Nine wails, though the blame is mostly half-hearted. “Now we’ll have to double back. The unluckies will find us soon if we don’t-- Stop laughing, bird! Go back to our owners already!”
And he grabs the bird (it’s the perfect throwball size, there was just this perpetual urge to baseball it across the horizon), chucking it into the air in one smooth motion.
Kinoko spins in the air for a startled bit, then spreads her wings and easily balances herself again. She stays just out of reach this time, continuing to make those choking laughter noises just to annoy the living daylights out of the agent.
“Dammit! If I had my bat with me you’d be minced, I tell you!”
“What are you even doing here, anyways?! Go away!”
Kinoko scoffs. She looks up for a moment, impervious to Miss Wednesday’s screech of irritation. Seemingly catching sight of something, she carefully starts flying again, making her way back toward the Twin Capes.
“Wha-- it’s going back?!”
“It’s a she, Mister Nine,” Miss Wednesday says, absolutely exhausted at this point. “But that’s a relief, we have to change our plans now--”
She turns around just in time to see what looks like a paper parcel dropping in from the sky. There’s a lit fuse attached to it.
Her mouth is still agape.
Mister Nine turns around just in time to scream, “GET DOWN!!”
Kinoko watches the scene from just far enough, glaring pointedly at the large vulture and sea otter in the sky. They stare at each other in animalistic silence, their hostility evident even without any obvious movements.
In disinterested unison, they part in their separate directions to report back to their owners on the happenings.
-
Crocus watches silently as the man leaves the room, his shoulders sagging with the fear of his impending death.
Roger never once let his illness take over his expressions. He smiled through all of it, and only faltered behind closed doors, and only in the dead of the night where no one would know.
Gin would get to that point one day. Crocus could see it.
He takes a drag of his cigarette and extinguishes it by the table. “Alright, now that that’s out of the way…” he lifts his gaze toward Nami, “you need something?”
She had said that her arm hurt. That was normal-- phantom pains, weather sores-- there wasn’t much that could be done for it.
He reaches for the painkillers though. He always keeps plenty of that in his shack for these situations.
Nami nods, straightening her back. She doesn’t reach out to receive the pills, she just considers them with a gratified nod and continues, “we’re making a stop at Drum--”
“Without a doctor or a physician?” Crocus interrupts before she even gets past the name, “do you want to die? Forget it. Why did you come into the Grand Line without a physician to begin with? What’ll you do if it snows?”
Nami can’t help but bark out a laugh. “Knew you’d say that. But listen to me until the end, we’re probably going to drop by Alabasta after that.”
Crocus sputters at that. “That’s suicide!” he says, exasperated. He pinches the bridge of his nose-- man, he’s had to deal with someone like this on Roger’s ship too. History really repeats itself, doesn’t it?
To begin with, prostheses were the worst things to have on a sea journey. Metal as they were, they were obnoxious conductors of the heat and cold.
In a desert, they would overheat and cause severe burns on her skin. If the heat permeates into her core, it could even cause permanent nerve damage; In the cold, the frostbite would be agonizing, and the oil that geared her movements would fail similarly.
Special steel cultivated from the hottest island and the coldest islands on the Grand Line-- that was what the most durable prostheses are made of. It allowed for a certain degree of resistance against the most extreme of both weathers, but nothing could really be a perfect countermeasure.
(After all, it could be refined to resist scorching heat all it wanted, but it’s still going to go wrong with wear and tear and they’ll have to remake it again. It’s just part and parcel of having prostheses.)
So hopefully, he says, “did your brothers at least give you proper New World Models?”
It’s not often that someone calls the Whitebeards her brothers-- so it takes her a moment to register it. But when it does, it blooms happily in her chest.
Nami chuckles bashfully, “well, they insisted, even though I said Paradise models were fine,” she tells him. “I’m wearing the Winter model now--”
“That’s a bad habit to do on summer islands.”
“I know, I know,” she says. “But I’ve been in the Blues for a while, so no extremes there.”
Winter models were lighter, but could really easily go wrong in extreme heat, so it’s not good to make a habit of wearing it perpetually. New World Models weren’t weak enough to fall to some normal summer heat, but it’s not great to be complacent. It’s really been awhile since there was someone around to tell her off about it.
“Back on topic, back on topic,” Nami says, deciding that they needed to steer back to the subject at hand. “We’re crossing Little Garden before then, so I’ll need to change to the Heat model now, and back to the Winter model before we get to Drum. And, as you know, I can’t do it myself…”
“Get a doctor,” is Crocus’ response. “As soon as you can.”
Nami sighs, “it’s on our agenda. But until then, I’ve only got you, and if you’re willing to teach one of my crewmates how to do it…”
Reattaching a prosthetic arm and screwing in the nerves is a delicate, painful process. It doesn’t take long at all, but one thing was clear-- you wouldn’t be able to do it to yourself if you want it to be put on right.
Nami has had Dr Nako and the Whitebeards help her with it thus far, but no one on the Strawhats had that sort of experience with prosthetics.
Except perhaps Usopp. He may have the qualifications on all grounds, maybe even experience-- but some things shouldn’t be done sightless, and he can’t always set his Haki to maximum output.
“Who in the crew do you think can do it?” Crocus asks her. “Your captain’s a fun, charismatic sort-- but I’ll say it for you, he ain’t up to it. Reattaching a prosthetic is hard-- I think you know the gist.”
Nami feels a little offended on Luffy’s behalf, but unfortunately, Crocus is right. That’s what she loves about Luffy, though… He’s dumb and hopeless in way too many things-- but if there’s something he can undeniably do, it’s to hold his comrades in his arms so they don’t go astray.
Sanji seems like the smart choice, but he wouldn’t be able to handle it if Nami so much as winced in pain. Nami had a feeling he’d lock himself in his room out of guilt or something, and that’s not something she can count on in dire times.
(You may trust your crew, but who do you depend on ?)
There was just a subtle difference in the meaning when you put it that way.
Nami turns toward the door with a smile.
“Yeah, I know who can,” she says.
-
She steps out and is greeted by a very bumbling sharpshooter.
“NAMI!” Usopp’s using that overly excited voice she honestly hasn’t heard in a while so hearing it again filled her with conflicted joy and utter confusion, “look at this for me and tell me what you see.”
And then he hands her a small bullet-sized red orb. She held it carefully, noting the intricate, almost annoying detail of the Buggy Pirates flag, and frowned.
“It’s a Buggy Ball,” she observes, “the really mini version.”
But the size is a little bigger than what she’s used to seeing. Buggy Balls were made to be minuscule, after all, this was still a little big. Right about the size of a bead necklace-- she rolled it around her hand, confused as to why Usopp would be so exhilarated by it.
Actually, how did Usopp even acquire this?
“I said look at it, Nami.”
“I am--” Nami stills. “Oh, you mean haki.”
So Usopp’s definition of ‘look’ is different now? Alright then. She closes her eyes and focuses.
A pulsing, undeniable strength, so faint, it would be there until you tried to see. And among that sound, there’s a word carved in with sheer will.
‘For the New World’.
“Oh, tell me I’m not dreaming,” she gasps, holding the Buggy Ball against the sun. “Is this an actual Buggy passport?”
Usopp’s smile grows. “It is!”
Nami could’ve cried right there.
An information passport-- well, that’s the blanket term, at least. Information comes at a high price in a world like this, and Nami got to know that in the later part of her past life.
The four devas of information control all those channels in the Grand Line, and in order to survive alone, you need to gain the backing of at least one of them. Of course, in exchange you’ll have to be their source of information as well, as a tradeoff.
(Ivankov was a big factor to why Nami lived as long as she did last time around.)
Information doesn’t discriminate. It’s valuable to every side of the war, including World Nobles, Marines, Revolutionaries and Pirates alike-- and it goes without saying that the devas are people of significant power themselves.
It’s a much more political and psychological side of war that always goes on, and Nami was at the center of it for a good part of her past life.
Their identities are mostly unknown, but passports were like their emblem-- a mark that signifies to the world that you’ve gained their influence. No one has seen all of them at once, but those who can read Haki will recognize it immediately.
That’s why, in the later parts of the Grand Line, most of the big names have connections to at least two devas to avoid any chances of a loss of information.
(The ‘passports’ were always different. From a declaration to the world, wearing their mark on their bodies-- or as a physical representation, like Buggy’s.)
(A solidified bead of the man’s own blood, made with technology of the New World combined with his own Devil Fruit power. If it ever changed hands into someone untrustworthy, it would probably dissipate.)
(And before it was called the Buggy passport, it was called Roger’s, for the nameless information gatherer of that crew .)
“Woah, Buggy’s?” Crocus whistles in amazement behind her. “Haven’t seen one in about two decades now. You guys must have done something crazy for it.”
Usopp snickers, “well, not us exactly. You’ll probably see it in the newspapers tomorrow.”
“Well, I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Ah, I see, that’s what Coby’s trying to do,” Nami realizes, fiddling with the Buggy Ball in her hand. “Even back then, the Revs didn’t have too many devas on their line, so he’s trying to become the fifth. Makes sense.”
She hands the ball back to Usopp with a smile.
“Love it. We’ve got to treat that guy to a meal someday,” she says.
Earning Buggy’s favour is the same as earning the favour of all other owners of this specific passport-- and hell, Buggy’s connections are scary .
“What exactly is a passport, dammit?” there’s Zoro, running along with Usopp’s walking stick in his hand. “And dammit Usopp, don’t run blind along a cliff! At least bring your bird with you!”
He looked like he’d just gone through three separate heart attacks and was still trying to recover-- Usopp had, after all, lunged over the ship, landed on a suspiciously tiny piece of rock, and then geppo-ed across to the bank. Zoro still has no idea what half of that is, but he was almost ready to jump into the sea if that idiot fell.
Nami snorts, but she tries to hide it.
“Ah, you brought my walking stick! Thanks,” Usopp says, like he didn’t just defy the laws of being blind for author convenience, “and well, it’s hard to explain, but basically we’ve got connections to the underworld now.”
“The underworld? Why’d we need that?” Zoro frowns at it. Did Usopp seriously get all excited just for that?
“Well, Luffy definitely wouldn’t want any, but information is valuable,” Usopp explains simply.
He lets Zoro chew on the rest of that himself-- Zoro’s smart enough to understand the big picture on his own, after all.
Zoro sighs. In the distance, Sanji and Luffy are still fighting over the last piece of meat, and Gin is carting Luffy around the place to make sure he tactically goes nowhere near the rest of the meat.
“Whatever then,” he decides. “I’m gonna go take a nap--”
“Wait, wait, Zoro.” Nami says, setting a hand on his shoulder. Her metal arm reaches behind her and retrieves a Log Pose, which she hands to Usopp.
Usopp stares at the Log Pose, “ah yes, let me go chart the course. Excellent idea.”
Nami whacks him over the head with a metal arm. She succeeds, but she also bowls over in incredible sores right after. Usopp’s head is bleeding, but he just holds it and cringes, because he definitely deserved that one.
Regardless, Nami composes herself, wiping away a pained tear in her eyes to face the swordsman.
“Great timing actually, I’ve got an important favour to ask.”
Zoro glances back, confused.
-
Happily, Usopp takes the Buggy passport back toward the rest of the crew.
He has his walking stick again, so he taps around the area slowly, easing the strain on his haki. He’ll need it at full blast for the starting storm at the exit, so first, a break.
Luffy is still arguing because how dare they not eat all the food they have, Sanji is working the meat smoker, and Gin is helping, while carting around his monkey of a captain like a very noisy article of clothing.
He senses Kinoko coming from the sides, and raises an arm to receive her on his elbow.
“Hey, girl, had fun out there?” he asks. It takes him a moment to smell the new scent in her feathers, and Usopp smiles sadly, reaching over to rub her under the wing. “I did tell you to mark her a little, but I guess the other way around worked better, huh.”
A little scent of powder, like a dust of makeup. The sour wisp of chlorine at the tips, tainted with gunpowder and berries of an unknown origin. It’s a familiar scent, not unlike the earth and oranges that spelled Nami to his senses.
The blood solution would’ve worked better, so he could track them with his Haki-- but a second ago, they’d fallen into the sea, so that was a bust. The smell was a nice tradeoff, though.
Speaking of idiots falling into the sea…
“Gin, have you used a log pose before?” he asks, approaching the crowd.
“A what?” Gin does not know. No wonder Don Krieg’s ship crashed and burned so quickly, they’d have died even before Mihawk got to them, what the heck.
Luffy is more curious about “a Rock? What rock?”
Usopp sighs, raising the log pose in his hand. It’s back to Nami being the only capable one again, huh… he can at least give Gin a rundown, then. Even Usopp knows by theory how it works, after all. He just doesn’t know how to read the wind and that stuff.
“We can use the map of Reverse Mountain Nami’s drawn before. Most of the starting seven islands are charted on it, after all. Do you have it?”
“It’s on the ship, gimme a minute.”
And then he begins walking, and not for the first time in this life but possibly for the strongest urge in a while, Usopp desperately wants his vision back just to see Gin casually making his way up the ship with Luffy humming Bink’s Sake on his shoulders.
It warms his heart, in a bitter, so sweet, and so painful way. He can feel it so well with his Haki, but it was a sight that just remained in the dredges of his imagination.
He was always so proud of his imagination, but now… now, it’s the only thing he has left.
He can still make those things come true one by one, and he can still feel them around him. But he’ll never see it. And that still hurts, sometimes. (All the time. It never goes away, it just dulls.)
But get used to it, Usopp , the voice in his heart tells him. (Do I have to?) Of course you do. A brave man doesn’t cry for things that can’t be helped-- he finds a way out of it.
And he nods to himself, bringing a smile to his face.
He finds a rock, and sits down.
-
Somewhere in the distance, Sanji takes a step for ‘your hand, Miss Wednesday’, and the girl, choked in smoke and the aftermath of a parcel explosion, decides to take it because otherwise she’ll just straight up lose her mind at this point.
Mister Nine is much less composed, clutching the edge of the cape as curses spill out of his throat to such a passionate degree, Sanji had to take a moment to be impressed.
“Damn those Unluckies! Didn’t even give us a chance to explain!”
Miss Wednesday gets up, biting her lip tightly. She looks around-- but the Unluckies were already too far in the distance, no chance of providing any further explanation. Were they headed back to Whiskey Peak?
...but that makes no sense. To the executioners, Miss Wednesday and Mister Nine had failed and thus were declared defects to the organization-- that’s how it worked.
So why wouldn’t they make sure she and Mister Nine are dead? They’re never this sloppy.
(Unless they want her to make it back to Whiskey Peak and regroup with Mister Eight and Miss Monday? Is this a second chance? Yeah, that must be it.)
She crouches down beside Mister Nine in a pretense of helping him up. She whispers to him, “well, since they spared us, I’m guessing we still have hope. We should hurry and regroup, and proceed with Plan M-8.”
Mister Nine meets her eyes-- and nods.
Immediately, they get on their knees, “Mister Chef, we have a request! Please allow us to speak to your captain!”
Sanji blinks at them, taking a skeptical drag of his cigarette.
(They need to draw these chumps to Whiskey Peak. But why… why does she feel like something just doesn’t add up?)
-
-
“Oyaji? We’ve got an advanced notice,” Marco enters the captain’s quarters with a paper in his hands. “Getting a visitor soon.”
“Ho?”
“Yeah, it came through the Buggy line,” he says, waving the paper around nonchalantly. He closes the door behind him, half of the commanders already inside the room, having been called an hour prior. “As usual, I have no idea how he gets a hold of this info.”
Thatch hums amusedly at that, leaning over the edge of the table. “Is it trouble? Like Akagami suddenly wants an audience, or something.”
Marco scoffs, “That guy doesn’t care to be subtle, so no way.”
“What, if it’s Shanks, let’s have a party!” Ace says, cheerful.
“Ace, no. For the last time, we cannot do that casually. There’s a routine to this.”
“Awh, we have to fight really badly first?”
“That’s what we did with Roger, yes.”
“Thatch, no. That is not how it works. Stop putting ideas into Ace’s head.”
Whitebeard rests his chin on his arm, looking aside in thought. “Do we know what our guest wants from us?”
Marco shakes his head. “But it’s from the Revolutionary Army.”
Izo hums. “I reckon they’re finally going to fix the problem with Ivankov’s passport going offline for years. It’s been a real nuisance these days...”
“But just a representative? Who do they think they are? Bring Dragon, dammit.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We ain’t got time for that nonsense.”
“Just asking, but we don’t have to serve tea, right? Just asking.”
The Strongest man of the seas raises his hand, and his children fall silent. “I don’t believe Dragon would strike needless conversation. He’s always been the more resourceful sort, after all. I suspect it has something to do with Aladine making a sharp turn in our direction as well.”
And that was true. They’d gotten Nami’s new bounty poster a few days ago (they had celebrated intensely) but they had also heard that Aladine was making a rush trip back.
They had guessed their youngest sister had an urgent message to send, and were eagerly awaiting the fishman’s arrival.
Now, it seemed much more urgent than before. Was it something that threatened the crew, so much that a revolutionary had to get involved if Aladine didn’t make it in time?
It was hard to guess.
“Wait, Marco-- how soon is this ‘soon’ you’re talking about?” Izo realizes. Information over a few Red Lines always came with a time delay, after all. They were expecting Aladine in two days, so what about the Revolutionary rep?
Marco seems to need a moment to think at that. Then almost regrettably he concludes, “uh, tomorrow, give or take a couple hours?”
“Marco!”
“That’s way too little time to do anything!”
The Phoenix raises his hands in his own defense. “Hey, don’t blame me! It’s hard to do the math when you have to account for the speed of the wind and waves!”
Everyone gets on Marco’s case for that either way, but most of them just laugh out loud.
“Wait, how the hell does the Revolutionary Army get here faster than a Fishman?” Ace asks, genuinely confused.
“Well, the Revolutionaries can travel through air like Marco, so depending on where you’re coming from, it’s quicker,” Thatch says. “For example, instead of following the sea route that lands you in Paradise, you can get straight into the New World from Reverse Mountain if you cross over the top in the other direction.”
“Huh?”
“Aladine can get into Paradise through the Calm Belt, but he can’t cut through to the other side of Reverse Mountain cause there isn’t an opening like the one on Fishman Island. He has to go the longer way through Fishman Island to get into the New World.”
“Wait, I don’t get it.”
Everyone stares at their youngest in an exasperated moment. Then Marco sighs, “meeting is dismissed. Someone get a map in here, we’re giving Ace an impromptu geography lesson.”
“Eeeehh?!”
-
The Revolutionary Representative arrives around daybreak.
Ace was on watch with Izo when they spotted the figure in the distance.
“Showing up without a disguise, huh. That’s quite bold of them,” Izo hums.
“Is there a real need for that on the open sea?” Ace asks, reaching over the crows nest for the bell that alerts the commanders of incoming visitors. He hollers, “one small vessel approaching, Oyaji!”
“Of course. I told you about the information channels, haven’t I?” Izo says.
With his roots in the seclusive land of Wano, Izo had made it a great point after becoming a Whitebeard to learn all about the information lines of the outside world. He’s quite literally the professional on this topic, at least on this ship.
Ace had only started learning about them a month after becoming the Second Commander, out of necessity for meetings.
(Come to think of it, he still owed Nami a drink for that one time they made the bet about whether he would accept Commandership of a division… She left before seeing him actually take it, huh.)
(Wonder what she’s doing now.)
“Ah… the News Coo, right?” he remembers now. One of the four information devas gained their information through the eyes of the newspaper delivery birds-- that was a real pain in the ass when going incognito, especially because everyone relies on them for the public news so you need to interact with one every day.
But here this Revolutionary Army guy was, glaring and obvious and without a disguise. What happened to their staple greenish coats? I guess it's still early for News Coos to show up yet, but it's still a risk.
“Are they trying not to appear as a threat?” Izo wonders. “Or is it the opposite, and this means they’re currently fully armed?”
It was hard to tell, with them.
Ace squints. Something about the obnoxious cravat-top hat-goggles combination just rubbed him the wrong way.
The commanders were waking up now, making their way out of the chambers into the deck to greet their quite uninvited guest. Ace joins them below, waiting patiently for the rowboat to come close enough.
Two knocks against the hull.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain Whitebeard?”
Ace freezes.
(No.)
“Come on up and state your business, young one.”
And the figure approaches, the hat on his head a painfully obvious replica of something that still sits in Ace’s family home, dusted every day. He looks up, the slightly curled blond hair framing his face, shadowing the large remnants of an awful burn on his left.
“I request a private audience with the Captain,” he says.
And that voice, that irritatingly polite tone of voice, confident in a way that could only be a birthmark in his mannerisms-- Ace clenched his fists tight, turning away immediately.
“Ace?” Izo asks, his voice softened.
Ace doesn’t look up. Izo sighs and turns his attention back to the crowd.
Uncannily similar, from little quirks to general idiosyncrasies. Ace could throw up right now, because he hasn’t felt so much sinking pain in his chest since he saw his world burn before his eyes.
It’s boiling, like some sort of incurable illness that has been in his blood since the day Sabo died out there, somewhere he couldn’t see.
(You’ll never be rid of this pain called grief , Makino had told him. It occasionally dulls, and sometimes it fades to make way for laughter, but it’ll come back. That’s why you have to hold tightly onto all your precious things-- they’ll help ease the pain.)
The conversation between the Revolutionary and his Captain continues, despite his internal turmoil.
The Revolutionary has a piece of paper in his hands now. It’s a letter, apparently, written in their code. “Apple Cider,” it reads, followed by the sketch of the Whitebeard’s mark.
A simple cross and crescent-- that was the specific caricature only the Whitebeards were allowed to wear. If this was fake, the revolutionary representative would be killed, Dragon be damned.
“If you’re trying to say this came from Nami, I will have to call bullshit, unfortunately,” Marco says, not quite believing it just yet. “To begin with, this isn’t her handwriting.”
The Revolutionary nods. “I believe it was one of her crewmates that delivered the code to me, under her orders. It came with orders of urgency.”
That makes sense.
Nami can’t write with that metal arm of hers (lines and scales were feasible with her left hand and maybe even her teeth, but actual writing was impossible if you sought legibility in any form), so she had the habit of making someone else write letters for her.
The drawn Whitebeard Mark was definitely Nami’s handiwork, though. Marco recognized the strokes. No one outside the Whitebeards should know these details, so this was quite good confirmation that this is in fact Nami’s work.
But it didn’t make sense that Nami would go out of her way to contact a Revolutionary, who knew enough to code a conversation with the Chief of Staff of all people, to send a message twice.
(Unless Nami already had a Revolutionary friend even before they met her, then they couldn’t complain, but still.)
Marco wasn’t going to falter yet. “Then say it right here.”
It could still be a long-running trick, after all. Aladdin was most probably on his way to deliver the same message, and there’s no need for two letters.
“With all due respect, Marco the Phoenix,” his tone is sharper in annoyance, and the crew tenses in the preamble of a battle, “I am not a delivery man that can bend the rules of customer privacy. I simply came because I believe this affects both our parties.”
The two of them glared pointedly at each other. Thatch had a hand on his blades, though the nonchalant smile was still on his face.
The Revolutionary should be aware that he was on enemy grounds. So the only reason he would be acting impatiently-- would be if he was a fool, or if he was actually in an urgent situation.
Finally, Whitebeard relents. “Into the meeting room,” he decides. Marco tries to protest, but Whitebeard adds on, “Marco will participate. That is as far as I will compromise.”
The Revolutionary lowers his head. “It will suffice. I appreciate your understanding.”
They enter the room, and the commanders remain outside. None of them have quite eased yet-- because if this was real, something terrible had come up, so much that Nami had to send two messengers instead of just one in Aladine.
It was definitely cause for alarm, if nothing else.
The urge to eavesdrop was incredible, but Whitebeard gave his word for a private conversation. No one is allowed to jeopardize that.
“Hey, Ace, you alright there?”
Ace jumps in surprise. Izo’s staring at him, but Thatch was the one that touched his shoulder in concern.
“Is this a hungry thing, or a tired thing?” the chef asks, genuinely concerned but slightly skeptical in case it was just something dumb. “I know you don’t like being nagged about it, but did you take your meds yet?”
“Probably not,” Izo sighs, “night watch, after all. How about we get breakfast settled?”
Narcolepsy, right, Ace thinks. Maybe he’s just hallucinating. Maybe his head isn’t clear, that’s why he’s seeing things like a boy that’s got unearthly similarities to his dead brother all grown up.
“Yeah, maybe I’m just sleepy,” he yawns. “I’ll go take a nap. Call me when Pops and Marco are out. Or when Aladine arrives.”
Under their watchful eyes, he walks away.
“Did Ace just say no to food?” Thatch hisses, a little too loud but Ace ignores it in favour of settling down by a sunny spot on the deck.
Izo is similarly unnerved. “Once Marco is out, let’s ask him to give him a checkup…”
In a normal day, Ace would be yelling, chasing them in all sorts of offended (and maybe carrying a pie to smash their faces in,) but not today.
Today, he finds himself a quiet spot, and pretends to sleep.
When he wakes up, things will be better.
-
“Well, the code’s pretty simple. A rotten apple spoils the bunch-- our contact is insinuating that you’ve got a traitor in your midst.”
Of all the things they expected to hear from the Revolutionary once they were in private, it was not this.
So when Marco lunged over the table to grab him by the cravat, the Revolutionary held up his hands in surrender, not defending himself, but not pleading mercy either.
“Marco,” Whitebeard reminds him-- and Marco begrudgingly lets go with an irritated huff.
The Revolutionary fixes his collar, unfazed.
“I do not appreciate this insult to my family,” Whitebeard says. “But if this is truly my daughter’s claim… I wish to understand why she chose to have an outsider send the message to the Revolutionaries as well.”
Marco’s glare was perpetual at this point.
Because that still didn’t make sense. Of course they would trust Nami. But why didn’t Nami just tell them personally? Even if her Den Den Mushi couldn’t reach the far distance, she had plenty of time to make her way out to the New World.
“The Girl with a Metal Arm, Burglar Cat Nami,” the Revolutionary says. “I believe she has joined hands with the Man Demon Gin and Pirate Hunter Zoro to form a crew of her own. They now sail under the name of the Straw Hat pirates.”
Their eyes widened.
(“I have a seat saved for me, by the side of the future Pirate King.”)
Come to think of it, that was always her dream, wasn’t it? So she’s found him after all… that Straw Hat imagery sure does bring up some old memories. But is that it? Because of that, she stayed in Paradise and risked such dire information in the hands of a complete outsider?
No, she isn't such an ice-hearted person. She wore the mark, after all. She swore by it and smiled by it, toasting to an oath for life. She wouldn't do something so irresponsible.
Ah… that’s why she sent two messengers.
It’s a long winded message-- one to ensure it is trustworthy information, and the other to indicate the urgency and the scale of damage if left unchecked.
It’s not because she no longer wanted to involve herself in the matters of the Whitebeards-- it’s the opposite-- it’s precisely because she trusted them enough, that she could be assured to stay in Paradise and let her big brothers deal with the problem.
Now he understood.
(Something still doesn’t line up, though. Like why would the Chief of Staff show up for such a matter? They could have sent anyone.)
“A traitor, huh… it’s hard to take in,” Whitebeard sighs, the disappointment showing in the sag of his shoulders. “Any clues on that?”
The Revolutionary shakes his head. That was probably what Aladine was going to tell them. “But we were told to send someone reliable as the messenger, so I came here.”
They frown at that.
Whitebeard sighs.
“Sometimes, I wonder why my daughter has to be such a crafty little lady,” he says, in the tone of an old man worrying as his child goes into their rebellious stage. "I never understand much of what she does.”
Marco and the Revolutionary share a tired chuckle.
“Maybe you should ask her when you meet her again," the Revolutionary suggests. "I really want to find that agent of mine and slap him a couple times in the face too. I've got no idea what he's planning, interacting so closely with pirates."
“Heh, you guys have your share of problems too, huh," Marco sighs. "Come to think of it, why the 'Straw Hat' pirates? Nami didn't have something like that."
The Revolutionary's shoulders sagged completely at this point. "You won't believe it, really," he says, like he's in for a world of paperwork once he gets back. "I mean, you'll get this information when the newspapers come by today, but this random kid in a Straw Hat just goes up to the execution platform in Loguetown and..."
For some reason, they were chatting like tired old friends now that they got their tense talk out of the way.
Well, until Aladine comes by with the other half of the information, there was nothing really they could do. So Marco decides to indulge in it, if only because he empathizes with having to deal with idiotic youngsters causing lots of trouble for everyone.