"But you stole my money, and I want it all back."
I stood there, watching Nami's face cycle through what could only be described as a greatest hits compilation of human emotional responses.
Surprise flickered first—brief, genuine, then fear, like she'd seen a ghost she thought she'd successfully exorcised. Then came the calculative face that was indicating thinking a solution, and finally the practiced mask, sliding into place with the efficiency of someone who'd spent years perfecting the art of emotional camouflage.
'I suppose, even professional thieves have their off days, especially when it comes to expecting their victims to track them down to their favorite fishmen's backyards.'
"Well, well," she said, her voice dripping with that particular brand of mock surprise that somehow managed to sound both theatrical and genuine at the same time. "If it isn't the Dead-Eyed Demon-sama himself."
'Dead-Eyed Demon?' I felt my eye twitch involuntarily. 'That's a new one.'
Usually, it was just "Dead-Eyes Hikigaya" or "The Sorcerer" when people were feeling particularly dramatic. But "Demon" was... creative. I suppose I should be flattered that my reputation has evolved to include mythical elements.
Though I couldn't help but wonder what kind of person comes up with these names.
'Did they sit around a table with a whiteboard, throwing out suggestions? "How about 'The Sorcerer of Doom'?" "No, no, too dramatic. What about 'Edgygaya Edgeman'?"'
'To let you know, my eyes are damn normal eyes, and did you have to add the -sama suffix?'
Oblivious to my inner thoughts, she tilted her head, studying me with the kind of calculated interest a cat might show a particularly troublesome mouse.
"You actually came all the way here just to get your money back? How... dedicated of you."
'All the way here. You talk as if you have gone to a faraway island or something. It was just a day of sailing, and if I tried to track you down without the compass, it would have only taken me 2 more.'
Tracking down a thief wasn't exactly some kind of recreational hobby you'd pick up between morning coffee and afternoon existential crises, but don't underestimate the investigational skills of a treasure hunter when money was involved.
'All I need to do is get the direction and the speed of the wind, and I could narrow your destination to two or three. Then, with a bit of deduction and asking the right people, I will be mapping your entire route for a month to come. But I could also ask my compass and it will tell me "The bitch is in that direction".'
I kept my expression neutral, though internally I was cataloguing every micro-expression, every slight shift in her posture. Two years of surviving in this maritime hellscape had taught me that reading people wasn't just useful—it was survival.
"You know," she continued, crossing her arms with the kind of casual confidence that suggested she thought she held all the cards.
"You gave me quite a lot of trouble many times. Interfering with my... business arrangements. Scaring off my potential clients. And making many of my deals quite hard." Her smile turned sharp. "But looks like you finally got a taste of your own medicine."
I blinked slowly, processing her words with the kind of methodical confusion usually reserved for particularly challenging philosophy textbooks.
'What the hell is this woman talking about?'
The logical part of my brain—the part that had kept me alive through two years of this nonsense—was already running through possibilities. 'Mistaken identity? Some kind of psychological manipulation tactic? Or was she just completely delusional?'
"Oi! Shittygaya!" The blonde cook's voice cut through my internal analysis with all the subtlety of a ship's horn at three in the morning. "What Terrible Thing Could You Have Possibly Done To Nami-San?!"
'Yes yes, the knight in shining apron.' I'd observed enough of his interactions during our brief time at the Baratie to recognize the pattern.
Damsel in distress equals immediate mobilization of his…'chivalrous'…programming. It would be almost endearing if it weren't so predictably pathetic.
I turned my gaze to him, letting my expression settle into what I'd come to think of as my "DeadpanHiki", that particular combination of boredom and mild irritation that seemed to unnerve people, just enough to make them uncomfortable.
"I've never met this woman in my life," I said, my voice carrying the flat certainty of someone stating an observable fact. "Before she robbed me at the Baratie restaurant, I wouldn't have even known she existed."
The words hung in the air like smoke from a badly aimed cannonball.
I watched as her confident mask flickered—just for a moment, barely perceptible, but there. The kind of micro-expression that suggested my statement had landed somewhere she hadn't expected it to.
'Interesting.' Whatever game she was playing, it apparently relied on me being someone I wasn't. Or having done something I hadn't done. The possibilities were... extensive and mostly annoying.
"Whatever petty revenge games you're playing," I continued, letting a thread of irritation seep into my tone, "I'm not planning on playing them with you. Where is my money?"
For a moment—just a moment—something that might have been genuine annoyance crossed her features. The kind of frustration that comes from having a carefully constructed narrative suddenly develop inconvenient plot holes.
"Humph, unfortunately for you," she said, and there was something almost... resigned in her voice now, though her eyes remained defiant, "I don't have the money anymore. It was all given to Arlong. I work for him."
"Every berry I take, every treasure I steal—it all goes to him," Nami continued, her voice gaining a bitter edge. "That's how this works. That's how it's always worked." She looked me up and down with obvious disdain.
"If you want the money back, you'll have to go through Arlong to get it. And if you have even half a brain in that head of yours, you should leave this island and consider that money lost in a disaster or something." Her voice dropped to something almost like a whisper.
"No matter how strong you think you are, no matter what reputation you've built for yourself, you could never beat the fishmen."
I stared at her for a long moment, letting the silence stretch until it became uncomfortable. Then I felt something that might have been amusement—if amusement could be cold and sharp and edged with two years of accumulated cynicism.
"You know, for a woman…You're a good liar," I said finally.
The effect was immediate and gratifying. Her carefully maintained expression cracked like poorly made porcelain, confusion bleeding through the gaps. Behind me, I could sense the Strawhats shifting, their confusion adding to the general atmosphere of 'what the hell is happening here.'
"What?" Nami sputtered, her composure finally slipping. "What are you talking about? I don't know what game you think you're playing, but—"
'Perfect.' Nothing quite like throwing people off balance with a statement that sounded like an insult but felt like... something else entirely.
"You're a good liar for a woman," I repeated, because sometimes the best way to drive a point home was through strategic repetition.
"Every word you just spat out—from not being a Strawhat crew member, to killing Slinger-kun, to stealing my money for Arlong, to all my money now being in Arlong's hands—lie after lie after lie."
"You're insane," she said, but her voice lacked conviction. "I don't know what you think you know, but you're wrong. Dead wrong." She gestured wildly.
"The money is with Arlong! I work for him! These people—" she pointed at the Strawhats "—they're nothing! Just some idiots I tricked!"
I could feel the weight of multiple stares, the sudden tension that came when people realized they'd walked into the middle of a conversation they didn't understand.
"You may be a good liar," I continued, settling into what I privately called my 'DetectiveHiki' mode, "but picking up lies and breaking them down has always been my specialty."
My gaze drifted deliberately to her gloved hand, the one that she didn't move at all, and kept it still from the moment this conversation started.
The kind of pattern suggests an injury that is very painful.
'It is most likely what the compass was telling me, and from what Johnny said and Usopp's status from the compass, it is most likely a self-made injury.'
"That hand must be hurting quite a bit," I observed, letting just enough mockery creep into my tone to make it sting. "I wonder why you might have such an injury."
The change in her expression was worth cataloguing for future reference. Shock, anger, embarrassment, frustration—all cycling through her features like a particularly dramatic weather system. The kind of emotional response that confirmed I'd hit the truth spot on.
"My hand is fine!" she snapped, instinctively pulling it closer to her body. "Besides," she continued, her voice rising with defensive anger, "what does that have to do with anything? You're just—!"
"And aren't you putting a lot of trust in these fishman pirates?" I asked, cutting her off with the kind of casual observation that tended to make people very uncomfortable very quickly.
"Eh…?"
The effect was immediate. Her mouth snapped shut, and I could see her mental gears grinding as she tried to process the sudden fact jab that probably goes against everything she believed about herself.
"Everything you just told us," I continued, settling into the rhythm of DetectiveHiki's logical deconstruction that had served me well over the years, "can be summarized as: 'You have no reason to be here, the fishmen are dangerous, so you better get away.' As if you're absolutely certain that no matter what, if we go into conflict with the fishmen, we'll die."
"Because you will!" she exploded, her carefully constructed mask finally shattering completely. Genuine agitation bleeding through her performance. The kind of emotional response that suggested I'd struck something real beneath all the theatrical deflection.
"You'll all die horribly! You have no idea how strong the fishmen are—!" she continued,
"I know," I replied simply. "I've seen it for myself."
That shut her up. Nothing quite like personal experience to cut through hypothetical arguments. I could practically see her recalibrating, trying to figure out how this new information fit into whatever narrative she'd been constructing.
"You..." she started, then stopped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
The silence stretched, thick with the weight of implications nobody wanted to examine too closely. Finally, I decided it was time to move this conversation toward something resembling productivity.
"I have no idea about these guys behind me," I said, gesturing vaguely toward the Strawhats without taking my eyes off Nami, "but I didn't come to this island just to get my money back."
'Time for the dramatic revelation.' If you're going to drop bombshells, might as well do it with appropriate flair.
"I came here to transform Arlong and his merry band of sea tyrants wannabes into sea waste."
Shock rippled through the assembled group like a physical force. Even the bounty hunter duo looked like they'd just witnessed someone casually announce their intention to juggle live grenades without their pins.
Only Delgado wasn't surprised. Of course, he wasn't. The man had been with me long enough to recognize when I'd moved from "mildly annoyed" to "planning elaborate violence." It was probably becoming a concerning pattern in his employment experience.
"By the end of the day," I continued, because sometimes the best way to commit to a course of action was to announce it publicly and make backing down impossible, "the Arlong Pirates will cease to exist."
Nami stared at me like I'd just announced my intention to swim to the moon. Her expression had shifted from confusion to something approaching horror, with several stops at incredulity along the way.
"If you…If you want to kill yourself," she said, her voice cold and angry in the way that suggested genuine emotion beneath the performance, "You Can Do It On Your Own! But Why Do You Have To Involve This Village?! Is The Money Really Worth Dying Like This?!"
There it is. The real concern is bleeding through the theatrical outrage. Care disguised as anger, protection masqueraded as dismissal. The kind of emotional tell that revealed more than any amount of direct questioning.
She turned to the Strawhats, her voice taking on a desperate edge. "I'll Give You Back Your Ship! Take This Idiot And Leave This Island! Go Find Another Navigator Somewhere Else, Search For The One Piece Or Whatever, And Don't Interfere With This Village!"
How touching. The classic "save yourselves" speech, delivered with just enough genuine emotion to make it clear she actually meant it. I almost felt bad about what I was going to say next.
Almost.
"Whatever beef I have with Arlong and his pirates has nothing to do with you," I said, letting my voice carry the flat certainty of immutable fact.
"I would have done this whether you stole my money or not. But now that you've told me my money is in Arlong's hands, you've given me all the more reason."
Which is true. I could see she clearly had her reasons and plans to solve whatever problem was eating away at her. She was trying not to implicate her friends in her situation—noble, really. But she'd gotten two fundamental things completely wrong.
'First, my involvement with the fishmen had absolutely nothing to do with her.' I'd been planning to turn Arlong Park into an underwater graveyard long before she decided to relieve me of my hard-earned money.
'Second, and this was the part that would have been almost funny if it weren't so predictably tragic—whatever she was trying to do to solve her problem wouldn't work. It would most likely blow up spectacularly in her face.'
From the information I'd gathered and the fragments I remembered from the Manga, she wanted to use some kind of diplomatic solution. With pirates. The kind of pirates who enslaved entire villages and used fear as their primary governing tool.
'How wonderfully naive.'
The fundamental issue with this solution was that it depended heavily on the cooperation of the other party.
'And when the violent other party was literally the source of the problem you were trying to solve... well, let's just say the success rate wasn't particularly encouraging.'
"So, I'm not leaving this island just because you want me to. Unless you want to stop me yourself. Or, of course, you could tell your fishman captain—the one you 'trust' so much—about me."
Her teeth clenched in frustration, the kind of visible tension that suggested internal warfare between multiple competing impulses. Whatever response she'd been preparing died in her throat as a voice behind me made an announcement that defied all reasonable expectations.
"I'm sleepy," Luffy declared, and I turned to see him laying flat in the middle of the road with the kind of casual disregard for social conventions that I was beginning to recognize as his signature characteristic.
"I want to take a nap."
"A NAP?! IN THIS SITUATION?!"
"IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD?!" Yusako and Johnny were flabbergasted, though the astonishment was shared by everyone present.
"I don't feel like leaving this island," Luffy continued, as if his sleeping arrangements were somehow relevant to our current diplomatic crisis. "And I don't really care about what's going on here either. I feel sleepy."
I could practically feel the collective headache developing among our assembled group.
'He most likely grasped the core of the situation, a bit instinctively. And the solution he came up with is to wait until it explodes.'
As for Nami... well, she looked like someone who'd just watched her carefully orchestrated performance get derailed by a cynical wanderer and narcoleptic rubber man.
"FINE!" she shouted, her voice cracking with frustration. "DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! YOU CAN ALL DIE FOR ALL I CARE!!"
And with that, she took off running, leaving us standing in the road like a collection of particularly confused street furniture.
'Excellent communication skills.' Nothing quite like ending a conversation by literally running away from it. Though I had to admit, there was something almost admirable about the commitment to the dramatic exit.
"Looks like she won't be telling that Arlong guy about you after all," Sanji observed, taking a puff of his cigarette with the kind of casual resignation that suggested he was getting used to these sorts of conversational outcomes.
'Probably not.' Whether that was because she genuinely didn't want Arlong to know or because she was too emotionally compromised to think strategically, remained to be seen.
"Hey," Johnny, one of the bounty hunters, spoke up. His voice carried the careful tone of someone trying not to sound like they were questioning a madman. "Are you really planning to attack Arlong? No matter how you look at it, that's very dangerous."
His companion, Yosaku, nodded in agreement. "Is your grudge against the fishmen really worth it?"
The inevitable question. The one I'd been expecting since I'd made my dramatic declaration.
I could see Delgado from the corner of my eye, his expression suggesting he wanted to say something but was hesitating. He knew what I was about to reveal, and he understood why I might be reluctant to share it with a group of relative strangers.
'But these people were going to get involved eventually—the narrative momentum of this place seemed to demand it.'
And from what I'd observed, they were mostly like their manga counterparts: naive, idealistic, and frustratingly trustworthy. The kind of people who would probably try to help even if it got them killed.
'Might as well be honest. Or at least, more honest than I usually was.'
"The reason I'm ready to go to this length," I said, the words coming out more carefully than I'd intended, "is because the fishmen stole something from me a while ago."
"What was it?" Sanji asked, and I could see the genuine curiosity in his expression. The kind of interest that suggested he was actually trying to understand rather than just satisfy idle curiosity.
I reached for my sword slowly, deliberately, letting my fingers wrap around the familiar weight of the hilt. The silver gleamed in the afternoon light as I unsheathed it to reveal the gleaming silver blade under the sunlight.
"A magic sword," I said simply. "Like this one."
The effect was immediate and gratifying. Attention sharpened, eyes widened, and even Luffy—who was supposedly sleeping—sat up abruptly with an enthusiasm that made me question whether he'd been unconscious at all.
"Magic sword!" he shouted, his eyes practically sparkling with the kind of childlike excitement that would have been endearing if it weren't so loud. "What kind of magic sword was it? Was it different from this one? This one is so cool!"
'So you weren't asleep after all.' I looked at him wearily.
"It is a dangerous artifact," I replied, keeping my explanation deliberately vague. "Its range of abilities was... different."
"But, how did they manage to beat you if you're this strong?" Luffy pressed, his curiosity apparently overriding any sense of social boundaries or personal discretion.
"I was still new to the sea at that time," I said, and the words tasted like old disappointment and hard-learned lessons. "I was confident in my abilities. I had to pay the price for that confidence."
'Understatement of the century.' "Had to pay the price" was a remarkably sanitized way of describing nearly dying at the hands of fishman pirates, who'd treated my overconfidence like a personal insult worth correcting with extreme prejudice.
"Now that I think about it," Roronoa's voice cut through my internal recriminations, and I looked up to find him studying me with the kind of analytical interest I'd learned to associate with people who took their swordsmanship seriously.
"When I first heard rumors about you, they said you were using some kind of strange, broken-looking sword. That struck me as odd at the time."
His gaze moved to the sword in my hand, and I could practically see him connecting the dots.
"Later, the rumors changed. Said you were wielding a silver sword. I figured you'd just found a better weapon, but..." He paused, his expression thoughtful. "It was actually stolen, wasn't it?"
Perceptive. I had to give him credit for that. Most people heard the rumors and accepted them as discrete facts rather than data points in a larger narrative.
'But, it is most likely because it is swords we are talking about.'
"Probably," I agreed, sliding the sword back into its sheath with a soft metallic whisper. "The blade might have looked broken to someone observing from a distance."
The Barbossa sword had been unique in its appearance. The kind of weapon that looked like it had been forged by someone with strong opinions about conventional aesthetics.
Sanji leaned forward slightly. "So, what are you planning to do now?"
"For now, I'll scout information about them and decide on the best course of action," I replied, because strategic planning was generally preferable to charging blindly into fortified positions defended by superhuman opponents.
'You know, like a rational person would do.'
"Then again, do you really need to go through all that?" Luffy asked, his voice carrying the kind of casual disregard for complexity that I was beginning to recognize as his approach to most problems. "Can't you just attack their base and kick their butts? If you need help, I could help you!"
The words hit me like a physical blow.
I felt something cold and sharp unfurl in my chest, spreading outward like ice water through my circulatory system.
'I know that his approach to doing things is different from mine, and I accept that it has its benefits, but this…'
Before I could stop myself, I was walking toward him, my feet moving with the kind of purpose that suggested my conscious mind had been temporarily overruled by something more primitive.
He was still sitting on the ground, looking up at me with that same naive confidence, completely unaware that he'd just stepped on a landmine buried in my psychological landscape.
"Are you the captain of this crew or not?" I asked, my voice coming out colder than I'd intended. Cold enough that I could see Zoro and Sanji tensing in my peripheral vision, their instincts recognizing a shift in atmospheric pressure.
"Yeah, what is it?" Luffy replied, his tone still carrying that same guileless curiosity.
I leaned down and grabbed him by the front of his vest, half-lifting him off the ground. The words that came out of my mouth surprised even me with their intensity.
"If you want to throw around big words and act brave," I said, my voice carrying the kind of cold fury that came from two years of hard-earned survival instincts, "then save that attitude for when the battle actually starts!"
His eyes widened, finally registering that something had changed in the conversational dynamic.
"If you don't put everything you can into preparation before the battle begins," I continued, the words pouring out with the force of accumulated frustration and bitter experience, "then you're just throwing away your life, your crew's lives, and disregarding the worth of your dreams."
'Being brave enough to bet your life in an impossible situation or goal is one thing, but not even trying to make any kind of preparation or even having a plan is something else entirely…'
It's as though your dream isn't even worth planning for; it's like your life and your crew's lives weren't worth a damn thing.
I released his vest, letting him fall back to the ground, and continued before anyone could interrupt.
"This isn't some bar fight where you walk into the enemy's territory, exchange manly fists under the sunset, get thrown out after taking a beating, and told to come back when you're stronger."
The words hung in the air like smoke from a battlefield, and I could see the impact in his expression. The sudden realization that maybe—just maybe—he'd been thinking about this all wrong.
"This is a pirate fight," I continued, because once you started down this particular educational path, you might as well see it through to its logical conclusion.
"Your enemies will come at you with uneven numbers, holding swords, guns, bazookas, or whatever else they can get their hands on to take you down. They'll cut off your head and every one of your crew's heads, then hang them on the gates of their base or ship as a warning to anyone else who might think of doing the same."
Harsh? Maybe. But accurate. I'd seen enough pirate bases decorated with the remains of overconfident challengers to know that creative violence was more rule than exception in this particular profession.
The silence that followed was the kind that suggested people were rapidly reassessing their assumptions about the nature of maritime conflict resolution.
I paused, looking toward where Arlong Park presumably lay beyond the trees and buildings, gathering my thoughts for the next phase of this impromptu lecture on tactical reality.
"The enemy are fishmen," I continued, because if I was going to give him a reality check with facts, I might as well be thorough about it.
"Every one of them is significantly stronger than a normal human and possesses abilities that function like weaker Devil Fruits. If they feel the battle turning against them, they'll immediately relocate to water, where they'll have every possible advantage."
And that's assuming they fight fair to begin with. Which, based on my previous experience, was approximately as likely as finding an honest politician in a den of thieves.
"Moreover," I said, my gaze finding Roronoa, "after Roronoa here attacked their base from the inside, they should be on high alert, so you can't sneak attack them. The bulk of their forces will be gathered at their stronghold, with access to every weapon they can bring to bear."
I turned back to Luffy, who was staring at me with the kind of expression suggesting rapid internal recalculation of previously held assumptions.
"You might be impervious to bullets," I said, because his Devil Fruit abilities were fairly obvious once you knew what to look for, "but I don't think your crew shares those same abilities. And even if they did, how many bazooka blasts to the face do you think they could take before they're down?"
The answer, for most people, was exactly one. But I figured he could work out that particular mathematical relationship on his own.
The effect of my words was visible and immediate. Awkwardness settled over the group like a heavy blanket, the kind of discomfort that came from realizing you'd been planning to take a test you hadn't studied for.
Good. Even if he continued being reckless with his fights, maybe now he'd approach this with a bit of careful planning that kept people breathing.
I turned to the bounty hunter duo. Because, as long as I was dispensing tactical assignments, I might as well make use of available resources.
"Do you want to do some bounty hunter work?" I asked, watching as dread immediately appeared on both their faces.
"We don't want to get involved with fishmen!" they said in unison, their voices carrying the kind of synchronized panic that suggested they'd had this conversation before.
Understandable. Fishmen had a well-deserved reputation for creative violence, and most bounty hunters preferred their targets to be slightly more... human-sized and water-breathing-impaired.
"You won't need to," I assured them, because I wasn't completely unreasonable about risk distribution. "Just scouting work."
The relief on their faces was almost comical. Almost.
"We can do that," they agreed, probably grateful that their participation wouldn't involve direct exposure to superhuman aquatic predators.
Before I could call for Delgado, the man was already standing in front of me, his posture carrying the kind of attentive readiness that suggested he'd been anticipating orders.
Not just the stance of an employee, but something more... devoted. Which was either touching or concerning, depending on how you looked at it.
'Probably both…sigh…'
I pulled out the map I'd acquired from Petty Officer Kowalski—along with three maritime telescopes—and handed them over to the scouting team.
"Scout the fishmen base, you can use this small hill or the taller trees in the forest for leverage," I instructed, because clear objectives were essential for effective intelligence gathering.
"Fact-check the information in the map, and get everything you can get on their forces. Their numbers, their distribution, their weapons, and if you can identify whoever's carrying the magic sword."
They nodded in acknowledgment, taking the equipment with the kind of professional competence that suggested they'd actually done this sort of work before.
Good. At least someone in this operation had relevant experience.
As I turned to leave, Yosaku called out, "Eh? Dead-Eyes-aniki! Where are you going?"
"That woman was lying," I replied, because the pattern of deception had been fairly obvious once you knew what to look for. "I want to make sure I find the right evidence."
I looked back at the Strawhats trio, who were still processing the lecture they'd received.
"Slinger-kun should be alive and hiding somewhere," I told them, because Usopp's absence from their group was one of the problems they were having right now. "Wait for him to show up."
They nodded, apparently grateful to have something concrete to focus on while they worked through the implications of everything else.
I walked away from the group, reaching into my pocket for Jack Sparrow's compass. The magical artifact settled into my palm with familiar weight, its disk already beginning to swing as I opened the lid.
'My stolen money.' I thought, focusing my intention on the money Nami had stolen from me. The compass disk spun once, twice, then settled on a direction that led toward what I assumed was her residence.
'Time to find out just how many lies she'd been telling.'
…
A/N: Whew, that was a hard chapter to write.
Anyway, That's it for now.
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