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When Nami left home, Nojiko knew she wouldn’t return the same. Those men she called friends, the ones who fought and nearly died for the sake of her smile were too wild to influence anything civil in her younger sister. She remembered flashes of them from the battle. Determined faces, living monuments to rage and protective fury—a chilling sight on four boys playing at men, barely old enough for their faces to forget the softness of childhood. Nojiko shuddered at the reminder of bright laughter ringing out in the warm afternoon, the crimson smiles shared by those with more creature in them than not.
The long-nosed sniper, tamer than the others but still nurturing that spark—pupils blown with the exhilaration of the chase, shaking from the adrenaline of a mark crossed off, weak from the attention of much stronger enemies. The flirtatious blonde, a beast in gentlemen’s clothing—lips stretched into an obscene smile around the cinders of his cigarette, tapping the tip of his shoe behind him with a lethal balance, steady hands safely tucked away in his pockets.
The swordsman, a demon by name—satisfaction emanating from his form as he wiped down his sword with a casual air, silver eyes gleaming with bloodlust, barely leashed energy lining the curve of his spine.
And the Captain—a monster in the form of a boy, laughing with bloodied teeth, crushing her sister into him with torn skin and filthy with grime and gore. The wildest of the bunch, the most Other. A storm of limbs emboldened by the strength of a god, an army of one against a literal force of nature.
Nojiko will never forget the feeling when Arlong Park finally fell, when her baby sister sighed out eight long, torturous years of enslavement and thievery. It was glorious, it was terrifying in its novelty; Cocoyashi hadn’t known this kind of peace in years. She would never be able to thank their saviors enough for what they undertook for the sake of a village even the Marines deemed unredeemable.
Still, when the last glimpses of orange locks drifted out of her view, Nojiko knew with a chilling certainty that the sister who stole the villages wallets one last time—the one who left them one hundred million berries to help rebuild and recover—would never come back to her the same. The Grand Line was the pirate graveyard, after all. And even if Strawhat was the most ridiculous pirate captain she’d ever met, it was obvious what he’d make of Nami.
So, when the Strawhats’ ship finally docked at their port after four years—four long and frantic and thrilling years Nojiko had been following by NewsCoo—Nojiko braced herself to face a stranger, a veteran of the Grand Line and the New World. Someone who’d faced down hundreds of Arlongs—hundreds of enemies stronger than Arlong. She waited with bated breath as the crew disembarked: their captain first, flinging himself recklessly from the figurehead, the swordsman close behind. The long-nosed sniper climbed down with a sort of fuzzy thing on his back. Their pet, she realized as Usopp reached the ground and set it down. A huge figure clad in a Hawaiian t-shirt and speedos yelled in delight as he followed, with the skeleton clinging to his back loosing a matching chortle. The cook jumped down next, before turning around and lending a hand to a willowy black-haired woman. After ensuring the woman was safely on the ground, the blonde turned back around to offer a hand to another woman. Nojiko’s heart raced as she recognized Nami’s flaming hair, so excited she almost missed the serious-faced fishman who finished the parade.
“Nami!” She yelled, racing toward the group. Her sister looked up from where she was laughing at something the pet (?) said and her eyes lit up.
“Nojiko!” They met somewhere in the middle, arms winding around the other and gripping hard, like they were afraid of separation. The sweet scent of tangerine and honey filled Nojiko’s nose, and she felt herself relax into the embrace. The chatter of the rambunctious crew behind them made the azure-haired woman a tad self-conscious, aware that her greeting was a bit more than desperate.
Finally, they pulled away, grinning at each other. Nojiko’s breath caught as the sunlight hit over Nami’s shoulders, lazily draping her in molten gold, the combination of a sel-assured nature and utter contentedness leading the elder to see echoes of their mother in her sister’s eyes.
“Wow,” She breathed, taking in her sister’s glowing form. She’d gotten a bit taller, lost the last vestiges of her baby fat, leaving the form and face of a young woman. Nojiko chased a tendril of tangerine hair down to the other woman’s waist, where she stepped back to appreciate the fashion sense that was acquired over their separation. The fabric of Nami’s sundress clung to her every curve, the forest green color off-set wonderfully by the cream lace trim cleverly contouring the hemline to just barely show off the figure underneath. Once, Nojiko would have been disgusted by this piece, would have called it a costume with no small amount of vicious derision, used to accentuate a selling point and not the person wearing it. Now, however, the azure-haired woman felt her heart swell at the sight, eying it appreciatively. Nami, seeing this, just laughed again.
The raucous sound jerked Nojiko out of her short daze, and she smiled at the rag-tag group—family—waiting patiently.
“I’m sorry for my lack of hospitality. Unfortunately, it’s not a skill I’ve gained since I last saw you.” The cook swooned.
“Oh, that’s okay Nojiko, my dove! You’re perfect without any manners!” She eyed him with some amusement, which turned into a smirk at the dual elbows from the Strawhat women finding his stomach. She gestured over her shoulder toward the village.
“Well, come on in! There are some people who’d love to see you again. You especially,” Nojiko shot that last part at Nami, then turned and led the way back to Cocoyashi.
___
Nojiko observed the pirates as they feasted on the spoils her neighbors started preparing the moment they heard about the visit. It was odd, in a way, to see her distrustful and often-abrasive sibling flung entirely over an animate skeleton, taking a mug from the hand of a former assassin, or chatting comfortably with Elder Ina from her place in the long-nosed sniper’s lap. That last one had her looking twice, but on a second glance, Nojiko’d never seen anything more platonic in her life.
(Secretly, she was glad of that. She was no slouch with a gun, by any means, but she wasn’t sure she could go toe-to-toe for her sister’s heart with the sniper of a Yonko—the Pirate King, no less—even if she remembered him to be a bit of a coward.)
Strangest of all, Nami seemed to be completely at ease with the hulking fishman and former Warlord caught in the middle of the mess. The other villagers, Nojiko included (no, she’s not traumatized, thank you), steered clear of the finned fiend, which he seemed to take with grace, taking care to keep out of the way of civilians and trigger-happy countrymen. The other Strawhats, even as they gallivanted around the town square, seemed to take notice and subtly include the whale-shark. Well, most of them were subtle.
“HEY, JINBEI. COME OVER HERE AND LISTEN TO THIS OLD GUY. HE RAN OFF A FUNNY PIRATE LAST MONTH.” The captain of the Stawhats hollered to his helmsman, a whole shank of meat in his hand, sauce running down his fingers and pooling around his wrist. Nojiko wrinkled her nose at the sight but quickly tensed—along with the other villagers—as the fishman slowly turned to his captain and made his way over. Nojiko felt her heartbeat accelerate with every step taken toward Strawhat—and subsequently, Nami, perched on the sniper’s lap directly on Strawhat’s right. Her vision tunneled, her fists clenched, and she stared at the broad shoulders—tall and proud, yet not meant for purposes of intimidation—as they drew closer to Nami.
“Yes, Captain?” The whale-shark’s deep rumble viciously reminded Nojiko of Arlong, and she half-expected to see a horrifyingly familiar saw-toothed nose as the fishman turned to where his captain directed his attention. Elder Dell trembled with the weight of the new attention, and the crowd grew tenser and tenser until—
“HEY! Get away from him, you overgrown whale!” Dead silence. Chatter ceased, the cook’s pans quit clattering, and the skeleton’s lively music halted abruptly. Gen, the man who spoke, snarled at the fishman, whose eyes turned deep and sad (which Nojiko decidedly did not notice). The captain’s head tilted unnaturally (unconsciously, a few villagers stepped back, suddenly very aware a monster was in their midst), a confused frown on his boyish face.
“Huh. I thought Jinbei was a whale-shark?” Nico Robin, the Devil Child of Ohara, stepped forward to the ravenette’s side. She leaned over to his ear, black hair as shiny as a vulture’s wing cascading over her shoulder.
“He is, Captain,” she said, voice smooth and slow, “That man knows that. It was a show of power, to purposely ignore our Jinbei’s identity.” The frown tugged lower, and the boy-king’s hat shadowed his eyes. Around him, the crew pulled closer, sat straighter, anticipating their Captain’s reaction. The party, once rambunctious and ringing with joy, fell silent as the Pirate King processed this offense.
And it was—an offense, that is. Even Nojiko, sheltered from the life and politics of a pirate knew that a slight against a crew member was a slight to the captain—especially with this crew, renowned as they were for feats of impossibility and wonder in the name of their crewmates.
After a long moment, drawn-out and rancid with the fear and anger of Cocoyashi village, Stawhat Luffy looked back up at Gen and the rest of the village.
“Jinbei is a whale-shark,” he said firmly, then with a touch of petulance, “Nami, tell them.” All at once, the focus shifted toward the orange-haired woman, who idly twirled a striped staff.
“Our helmsman is a whale-shark,” she confirmed, eyes penetrating the very souls of the villagers as they relaxed in the face of familiarity and safety. Nojiko suddenly realized the brilliance behind Strawhat’s referral—no one paid attention to the fishman shuffling away (sinking into the arms of a skeleton, a cyborg, a reindeer, a swordsman), placing all their focus on their pirate princess with her shimmering hair and vast confidence.
Then, the questions came.
“What the hell’s he doing here?”
“How come that bastard gets to step foot on our island—it’s peaceful now!”
“How dare Strawhat bring that despicable—” (the speaker was cut off here by many disembodied arms and cold, dark eyes). Eventually, Nami raised her hand for silence. Behind her, the cook swooned with hearts in his eyes and fire swathing his feet.
“Come, now, everyone!” She grinned; everyone stared. She seemed to bring light to even the darkest recesses of the newly rebuilt Cocoyashi, heartening its people and calming their rage. “It’s Jinbei,” and she said the fishman’s name like it meant something, like it belonged to someone precious, “He’s nakama.” She paused, waiting expectantly for this statement to land. Nojiko, herself, didn’t quite understand the significance of the distinction, but she understood that it meant something wonderous to the Strawhats as they all nodded—some with fierce smiles, and others with soft eyes.
When she failed to receive the reaction she wanted, Nami rolled her eyes and huffed a bit. Nojiko smiled, kind of amused and relieved at the childish action she remembered of her sister. The villagers, for their part, shuffled a bit, obviously relieved at the reassurance, but unwilling to drop their guard. Gen scoffed aloud, rudely.
“How could you of all people allow that thing to come here!” The Strawhats stilled. The ones Nojiko remembered from before—the swordsman, the cook, and the long-nose—all looked to Nami in an instant. She had stiffened, stopped cold by the accusation, but she seemed to draw strength from the attention of her crew as she replied with a cutting edge of ice in her voice,
“Jinbei is my friend, my nakama. He is a fishman, yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good man. He has been persecuted and discriminated against his entire life—but he still has love in his heart for humans. I’ve never met anyone—human, fishman, or otherwise—with a sense of honor as strong as his, and you’re not likely to, either. He has proven himself time and time again to our crew; saving our lives, giving advice or a kind word. We trust him—I trust him: with my back, with my worries, with Luffy’s life. He is ours, and I wouldn’t have anyone else to be the helmsman of the Pirate King!” She finished, all fiery and impassioned, still encircled by the sniper’s arms and surrounded by her crew.
It suddenly struck Nojiko how close they were: limbs all tangled and intertwined, no one member ungrounded by the touch of another. The captain was in the center, still gnawing on a slab of meat, seemingly unaffected by the tension in the air.
The villagers of Cocoyashi, for their part, seemed stunned into silence by Nami’s speech, looking back and forth between Nojiko’s sister and the fishman—Jinbei. Nojiko, herself, was a little shaken by the vehemence with which the other woman spoke. She exchanged glances with Elder Ina beside her, and moved to step forward before—
The swordsman shot up from his resting position just beside his captain. His one grey eye glinted fiercely in the fading sunlight, and his hand on his swords twitched like it could already feel the tacky blood clinging to it.
“Looks like we have uninvited guests.” Every one of the Strawhats—save their captain, as he was focused on his plate—rolled their eyes fondly at the bloodthirsty grin slashing across his otherwise handsome features.
“Zoro.” The green-haired man stopped dead at the slight command in his captain’s voice. “Come have some of this sake.” This was more of an invitation, Nojiko could tell, but there was still a hint of Will embedded deep in the dark-haired boy’s offer. Still, she had a feeling the speed with which the swordsman followed the captain’s command would have been replicated without it, as well. Nojiko tensed as the horrid sounds of ransacking pirates grew closer and closer.
“Nami?” Strawhat’s voice sounded again. She looked over, face half filled with shock and the other half dread.
“Yes, Capt’n?” She mumbled, already looking resigned.
“Take care of them, would you?” Nojiko stiffened, ready to fight and yell and tear Strawhat apart, because her little sister was no monster like they were—
“WHY DO I HAVE TO DO IT???” Nami shrieked. Strawhat blinked.
“Zoro and I are eating.” He replied, eyes wide and guileless.
“What about the others? Honestly, Luffy, I’m just a girl! What do you expect me to do about any of it?” Nami’s eye twitched, and her voice took on that shrill quality she always had for a particularly easy mark. The captain, however, was unphased.
“They’re eating, too.” Nojiko’s sister moved to object, turning to the rest of the crew, who were in various stages of acting out that untruth.
Some already had plates and just started cramming it in faster (Franky, Chopper), some were awkwardly pretending to chew from already eaten plates (Brook, Jinbei), some could be seen literally reloading their plates (Robin), and some simply looked the other way with a grimace (Sanji). The sniper, for his part, deadpanned,
“Ah, yes, I’m eating.” Yet, it was abundantly clear he had no food near him. Nami glared at him with no small amount of fire—enough to sear the flesh off any lesser man—but the long-nose just snickered. “Better you than me.” He stage-whispered.
Nami, rubbing her fist and sighing, moved away from Usopp and his new goose egg and toward where the sounds of destruction were growing closer. Nojiko’s blood ran cold as she realized the other woman’s intentions.
“Wait—” Nojiko shouted, desperate, “You can’t beat back an entire crew!” She turned on the black-haired boy still stuffing his face. “How dare you put my sister in danger like that! How could you?” The infuriating boy simply laughed.
“Shishishi. Don’t worry! Nami can do it.” Nojiko threw her hands up, shouting with frustration, and whirled around for a gun. Before she could reach the one kindly offered by the terrified bookstore owner, a hand reached out and stopped her.
Sanji wiped his other hand on his apron, then moved to take a puff of the cigarette in his mouth.
“I know what it looks like, mellorine,” He said, voice devoid of the usual simper, “I promise my Captain knows what he’s doing. Nami will be okay.”
There was no time to argue with the oddly subdued cook, because as soon as the words left his mouth, chaos descended. Nojiko was forced to watch on as her sister—transformed?
That’s not the right word, but Nami seemed to grow taller, darker, colder. The striped staff in her hand jumped and expanded. The orange-haired woman faced down the raiding pirates with all the fury of a demon. Wordlessly, she swung her staff up to the sky, heedless of the beasts pushing up to her.
Then, the heavens split apart.
Great, heaving clouds screamed and rained down lightning on the heads of the pirates. The wind howled its upset, whistling between invaders and catching on the trees surrounding them. Nojiko watched in awe as the very air seemed to come alive for the sole purpose of defeating the monsters attacking her home. Her eyes widened and she shrieked a warning to her little sister as a small, but terribly powerful, tornado formed to her left. She watched in horror as it grew bigger and bigger, closer and closer, until all she could see of Nami was an occasional glimpse of orange.
Distantly, it occurred to Nojiko that her sister was controlling the insanely powerful force of nature, but that’s not how worry works. Still, as Nami brought nature itself to heel and bent it to her will, masterfully directing the flow of the very wind and earth, the azure-haired woman couldn’t help but think of those stories of mythical female deities who lived in harmony with the elements. Those long, sure limbs Belle-mére once described to the two girls were suddenly right in front of her, all but waltzing with—was that a cloud?
The cloud in question wore a cap, and Nami chucked its chin before casting it forward toward the remaining raiders. It curled around her—almost protectively—before gathering strength and growing darker and heavier with rage. Electricity crackled along its sleek body, and Nojiko hazarded a glance at her sister, just in case it was hurting her, but oh—
The grin on her sister’s face was bordering on manic, and somewhere in the back of her mind tickled the memory of a certain straw-hatted boy carrying the same smile (Nojiko’s breath froze in her lungs). Nami’s hair whipped around her, following the path of the wild breeze. Coupled with the thunderous tail-end of the cloud still draped around her form and that careless D grin she appropriated, Nojiko couldn’t deny that her sister was a pirate—and a powerful one at that. One capable of venturing the Grand Line and coming back relatively unscathed, one able to face down crews of hundreds and Yonkos themselves—one worthy of the title of Navigator of the Pirate King.
It's over before it began, really. The whole event (Nojiko hesitated to call that massacre a fight) lasted only about five minutes: about a hundred fifty men falling to the might of one woman. Nami stood a little too still, a little too quiet when she realized there were no more enemies coming her way. She seemed a little confused, like she wasn’t expecting for it to be over already.
The other Strawhats held no such feeling. They whistled and laughed raucously at the pitiful sight of the fallen men.
“YOWWW. That’s our Nami-sis!”
“Hell yeah, witch!”
“Oi! Don’t call Nami-swan a witch, shitty marimo! Nami~ you did wonderfully, my love~!”
“Yohohoho! What a thrilling sight!”
Nami just smiled beatifically (regularly, this time, and her older sister’s heart resumed its rhythm).
“That’ll be a hundred million berri each.” The swordsman scoffed.
“For what kinda show? That wasn’t hardly anything to watch.” Everyone collectively winced as the tangerine curls practically teleported over to whack him over the head with her (magic) striped staff.
“Well excuse me for being used to the strongest this world has to offer! I’ve fought off (“Ran from,” the long-nose coughed conspicuously. Nami flipped him off with zero hitch in her stride) so many Yonko crews—and Yonkos—it’s a damn miracle I remember what actual humans fight like!”
“Yeah, because that’s so hard. I’m crying for you.” The King of Hell shot back.
“WE’RE NOT ALL MONSTERS, YOU SICKO.” Nami shrieked into his smirking face.
“Well, I don’t know many humans who can harness the fucking wind—”
“DON’T PUT ME ON YOUR LEVEL, JACKASS!”
“Shishishi!” The Strawhat captain giggled from where he was leaning on the green-haired man. Nami and Zoro immediately shot twin looks of fondness at him, before catching the others’ eye and scowling. “I knew Nami could do it.”
“So she could.” Nojiko murmured dazedly. She looked up at Nami, finding her sister’s eyes already on her. “You really grew up, huh?” The gentle smirk she got in return had her seeing double: on one hand, a grown woman, powerful and self-assured. On the other, a little girl who cried during rainstorms and clutched at books on navigation like they were made of gold. Nojiko’s heart hurt a little as they merged, and she didn’t think she could quite explain away the blurriness of her vision when her sister replied,
“I think Mom’d be proud.”
____
Later, when it’s just the two of them, the younger sister would weave tales of grand adventure and profound hope. She’d detail ten figures full of flaws and pain, and how they grew and healed. The older sister would gasp in all the right places and hold the younger when she eventually broke down over a time of failure and regret, then cheered with the reassertion of Hope in the world.
In return, the older would exchange gossip and obituaries, profit margins and day to day life after salvation. The younger would shed some tears over lost memories and laugh at funny anecdotes and simply soak in the company of family.
With all words exhausted, they’d clutch at the other and fall into the embrace of sleep—once more simply two little girls in the face of the world.
(They knew goodbye was coming again quickly, but this time, they were both reassured of another hello.) In the morning, there would be another party, perhaps grander than the one the previous night. Perhaps a whale-shark fishman would fall into conversation with a village elder about knitting techniques and slowly acclimatize the village to his gentle ways. Perhaps a skeleton and cyborg would get so drunk, they find a chaplain and exchange vows (with, perhaps, a thousand eyes dotted around the venue and a gleeful giggle echoing around the couple).
Perhaps there would be a brawl, or another raid, a new contender hoping to steal the crown from a King, and orange curls would disappear into the sunset along with a tight-knit crew and such joy abound them it’s nearly visible.
(Perhaps as that proud ship heads for the horizon, a blue-haired woman stands at a grave, freshly adorned with a branch of a tangerine tree, and smiles to herself, content with the knowledge that ship will return again and again and again.)
Perhaps.
But in the moment, the two sisters held each other tight, clutching shared memories and freshly offered stories as the night breeze echoed with the snores of comrades safe and close at hand.