This time, absolutely everyone's eyes nearly climbed out of their heads. Luffy had not had the last word.
Only Zoro's reason for reacting was entirely different. He could not believe the girl had dared to do something so idiotic. Luffy was the kind of person who could take brutal revenge on his future self for mistakes committed by his past self. There was no need to mention what he could do to other people.
The swordsman knew more about Luffy and Nami's relationship than anyone else, but even with that knowledge he did not believe this provocation would end well. The girl was not merely playing with fire. She was throwing bombs directly into the mouth of a sleeping volcano.
"Have you lost your mind?!" Zoro finally asked her.
Nami responded with a mocking smile that was simultaneously somewhat indulgent, as though she found his question adorably sweet but hopelessly naive.
"You should go find the hunters," she advised Zoro. Then she took a bottle of wine and a glass and sat beside the utterly confused Usopp.
After pouring herself wine, Nami calmly began bringing the long-nosed man up to date on recent events.
"I think I've said this once before, but I wish we could take present-day Nami and show her to her former self," Johnny said first after catching up with Luffy. "She has more self-confidence now than the entire Arlong gang had put together… You aren't going to do anything too serious to her, are you?" he asked somewhat nervously.
Luffy merely gave him a dark look.
"What? We all know how much you hate losing, and she just beat you on your own field! You would have torn anyone else's head off already."
"Tell me, since Zoro—unlike you, Yosaku, and Sanji—doesn't visit brothels, does that make him gay or impotent?" Luffy asked, apparently without any connection to the conversation.
"…What?"
"Does Zoro look gay or impotent?"
"…No."
"Can you imagine him tearing Tashigi's head off?"
"…No."
"Now, man to man, could you resist Nami if she decided to drag you into her bed?"
"…Do thousandths of a second count?"
"I see you understand everything." Luffy nodded wisely. "And since you understand, go ahead and show me where you roasted the duck."
Having understood absolutely nothing whatsoever, Johnny obediently trudged forward.
"I roasted it here, and it flew that way." Five minutes later, the man pointed out the scene of his crime.
Luffy walked from side to side, then tilted his head slightly as though listening. Johnny understood that he was using Observation Haki at full strength. After standing still for several seconds, the visibly deflated boy began shuffling toward the shore, dragging one foot after the other.
"So it survived after all?" Johnny immediately understood the reason for his captain's change in mood. "Or almost survived," he corrected himself a minute later while examining a completely bald, badly scorched thing that could be identified as a former duck only by its flat beak. "What are we going to do with it?" he asked after another moment. "It's conscious, right? Since you found it with Observation Haki?"
Luffy scratched the top of his head in confusion and answered uncertainly.
"It should be conscious."
Despite his words, the half-dead duck barely looked alive, so it was difficult to believe that it remained aware. It did not move, barely breathed, one eye had rolled back while the other was missing entirely, and only faint sounds escaped its throat in time with its breathing.
"Kwaaark… kwaaark…"
Johnny had not lied. The sound the duck made truly resembled a mixture of a quack and a croak. Or perhaps the burns and wounds were responsible. Who knew what noises anyone might make after being roasted to the brink of death?
"If you slit its throat, I'll definitely tell Nami later," Johnny immediately betrayed himself completely when time continued passing and Luffy still could not reach a final decision.
He decided not to play the hero and confessed everything honestly from the beginning.
"Traitor."
"Like hell!" Johnny became genuinely outraged. "Is it my fault she knows how to switch people's brains off? I can handle ordinary Nami just fine, but not when she needs something from me! When she wants something, even Zoro fails to withstand her pressure more than half the time. In the end, I'm a normal man! Our Nami could turn a happy bride into a committed lesbian right in front of the altar. Seriously, why did you feed her that fruit at all? You should have found some Logia instead. We'd have had a hundred times fewer problems!"
"You say that as though I knew how everything would turn out… And don't flatter yourself. No matter what fruit she ate, the number of problems would not have changed much. Even without a fruit, she had every sign of becoming an extremely beautiful woman."
"But not that beautiful!"
"…Moving on."
"Agreed."
"So what do we do with the duck?"
"You're asking me?!"
"You roasted it, not me."
"…Do you think Traffy would want to play veterinarian?"
"What do you think?"
"…"
"…"
In the end, apparently out of sheer hopelessness, Johnny said:
"Maybe we really should slit its throat?"
"You think I object?"
"The only problem is that Nami will whine all the way to Alabasta." Johnny nodded knowingly.
"Or even longer… Though I'm more concerned that extracting money from the king will become much harder."
"Especially if our princess finally dies for good." Johnny nodded knowingly again.
"Right. At least the duck could remind him of his daughter."
"I don't know. It's missing an eye, one leg burned off, I think one wing is finished too, and its entire body is scorched. Are you sure a monster like this would make a good reminder?"
"We'll think about that later. For now, we need to decide what to do with the duck."
"Maybe we simply do nothing? It might die on its own! And if the princess dies too, then to hell with both of them! To hell with the money as well! We weren't thinking about money at all originally, and what is one billion to us? Not enough for a couple of drinking parties!"
Johnny was exaggerating slightly, but not by much. Sometimes their parties exceeded every reasonable limit.
"This isn't only about the billion." Luffy rubbed his chin. "Alabasta would make an excellent foothold for gradually taking over the Grand Line. Clear Sky has long been cramped in East Blue, and here we have an entire untouched field."
"In that case, the royal family's cooperation would make Conrad and Orc's work much easier."
"Exactly."
"Are you certain the king will agree to deal with another underground organization immediately after getting rid of the previous one?"
"We'll see how the cards fall." Luffy shrugged. "Unlike Broke Shwarks under Crocodile, Clear Sky benefits much more from having a strong, wealthy country among our partners."
"A great deal also depends on the king's intelligence and character," Johnny said with a slight frown. "Judging by his daughter and captain, he must be dumb as a cork. You definitely can't accomplish anything with a partner like that."
"True enough, but the country already has a civil war, so if necessary, we can use Crocodile's groundwork."
"What do you mean?"
"We play heroes, save the country from the evil Shichibukai who plunged it into the chaos of civil war and slaughtered the royal family, then place our own puppet on the throne. We would barely need to do anything. Almost the entire stage has already been prepared for us."
"I personally don't care, and neither will anyone else, but Nami definitely won't agree. At least not to killing the royal family. And I'm afraid it won't end with whining alone."
"Yeah, you're right. Our walking conscience would peck every brain out of our heads… Oh, well."
"What do you mean, let her peck?" Johnny did not understand.
"No, I mean to hell with Alabasta! If the cards don't fall the way we want on their own, we won't go out of our way. We have our entire lives ahead of us! In that time, we'll manage to bend the whole world over, not merely Alabasta."
"Right! So what are we doing with the duck?"
"…To be honest, I was secretly hoping it would die while we talked, so we wouldn't have to do anything except drag the carcass to Sanji."
"It's still alive."
In the end, Luffy decided to handle the situation the same way he handled most of his problems.
"I suggest we drag the duck to Nami and let her head hurt over it!"
Unable or unwilling to solve a problem? Find someone who will solve it for you.
"Perfect!" Johnny immediately expressed his complete approval. "Although I already feel sorry for poor Traffy. Our walking conscience definitely won't let the duck die peacefully, which means he'll have to test his skills as a veterinarian."
Johnny rated the Surgeon of Death's chances of resisting the girl's pressure very poorly. If even Luffy had begun occasionally retreating before her, Law himself would be devoured instantly, guts and all.
"Traffy has Bepo on his crew, so he practically counts as a veterinarian already."
"Fine. How do we carry it? If we drag it across the ground, it will definitely die!"
"Only the roof of that house over there is burning so far." Luffy looked around and pointed. "We'll find some cloth inside and carry it on that."
They did indeed find a blanket large and thick enough to support the duck's weight without tearing. The two men used it to carry the half-dead animal back to Nami.
"KAROO!!!"
Igaram's reaction was highly predictable.
"Here, exactly as you ordered!" Luffy said cheerfully when he and Johnny dropped their burden directly at the feet of the girl, who still sat on the sofa beside Usopp. "It's still alive, and we didn't even finish it off, so now you can deal with it yourself! And if you change your mind, call Sanji. He'll arrange everything in the finest possible manner! You'll lick your fingers clean!"
Having 'solved' the duck problem, the delighted Luffy and Johnny bounded off together to search for the remaining hunters without waiting for Nami's objections.
The girl herself was no fool. Without even rising from the sofa—Usopp ran to the submarine for her—she 'solved' the duck problem a second time, after which Ikkaku, Shachi, and Clione gained another headache. Their captain was busy at the moment. Besides, did they look like veterinarians?
Still, all three understood perfectly well that objecting was pointless. They had known Nami for more than a day by now. The only thing worse than Nami could be Luffy, and the only thing worse than Luffy could be Nami herself.
While Ikkaku tried adapting human medicine to Karoo's injuries, Shachi and Clione continued analyzing the collected blood samples, adding new test tubes whenever another hunter was dragged in.
============================================================
Please Write a review/comments and support with power stones. Also check my other works.
Also if you want to support me, or access to some additional chapters, then check the patre on.com/moctopus