One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Sand Shark ❯ Sand Shark ( Chapter 1 )

Sand Shark

Luffy frowned, sitting up when he saw what she was doing.

NAMI, he read in the sand, close to the water.

She didn't seem concerned that the seawater lapped constantly at it, and eroded the name away into barely an indent. Wielding some stick that she had found further up the beach, Nami sometimes traced over where the water had ruined her name. Scratching his nose, he cocked his head to the side before he glanced up and down the beach. He spotted something that might work for his purpose, and walked toward it.

Hefting the sharply angled rock, he poked at the edges until he found the sharpest point, and then looked around again before the sight of a boulder caught his attention. He ran over, and started digging the point into the solid stone, biting his tongue as he went at it.

A shadow appeared over his work, and he glanced at Nami before he just grinned, and went back to scraping lines.

She said, “What are you doing?”

“Writing my name.”

Nami leaned in to see better, and he saw as she raised an eyebrow out of the corner of his eyes. Pulling back after a while, she said, “It's easier to do it in the sand.”

“Where's the fun in that?” He laughed, and finished scratching in the `L' before he tried at the `U,' applying more pressure since the first letter had been difficult. “It just fades away.”

“That's going to fade too eventually,” she said, and he paused to frown at her.

“Mine will last longer than yours though,” Luffy said, and then he bit his tongue again while he attempted to etch in the bottom curve. She sighed, and he grimaced, “Oi, you're in my light, Nami.”

She barked a short laugh, and walked away, picking up her stick again, but she didn't touch the name in the sand. Frowning, Luffy looked at her as she tapped the stick against the sand as if contemplating something, and then he returned to his new task.

When he completed his name, he started scratching `Z' into the stone. She said, sitting in the sand, “When did you want to leave the island? We've stocked up on enough fruit.”

“Yeah … Too bad Gaimon won't let us have any meat,” he said, working on the `O.'

“Ew! You want to eat something that looks like these little monsters?” He saw her write in the sand again - her name, but smaller.

“Sure,” he said, and he finished the `L' before he scratched his scar. “Meat is still meat no matter what it looks like.”

Nami huffed, and said, “You're making me feel sick just thinking of eating those animals.”

“So don't think about it.” He sniggered then, “Close your eyes when you eat too.”

“You're impossible to talk to, you know that?” She said, and she tossed her branch into the ocean before she got up, and dusted off her rear to loosen any sand. Turning to him, she said, “I'm going to check on the ships. You have fun with your rocks, Luffy.”

Luffy's hand ceased moving over the boulder, and he turned his head to watch her go across the beach. When she was completely out of sight, his lips stretched to accommodate his enormous grin, and he grated the rock into the boulder once more, chortling to himself.

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“Where's Luffy?” Nami said when she came up, glancing at the sleeping Zolo. “We should be leaving soon. We have what we need.”

He opened one eye to frown at her before he turned onto his side, “Who knows. You're the one that saw him last, right?” Cupping his mouth, he said slurred through a yawn, “He's probably just taking a dump somewhere or something. Luffy will turn up eventually.”

Sighing, she shook her head, and jumped out of the boat to land on the beach, “I'm not going to wait around for him to show up.” Heading off down the shore, she began to call out his name, glancing through the jungle of the island, and she hoped fleetingly that he wasn't lost. After she frowned at the thought of concern over the pirate, she walked faster, “Luffy!”

“Nami!” Blinking, she squinted before she jogged over to see past the natural curve of the island, realizing that he was still where they had last seen one another. When she approached, she saw that her name in the sand was long gone, but Luffy had taken up the stick she had used. He was just finishing drawing a panda.

At least, it looked like a panda.

Her mood softened when she spied Luffy and Zolo's names on the boulder. Tilting her head, she felt a tinge of warmth on her cheeks when she also saw her name on the back of the boulder that faced away from the ocean. Comparing the names, she noticed that her name was easily twice as big as theirs was.

When she turned her gaze to him, he grinned, and motioned to his drawings, “Tada!” He snickered, and scratched his scar, “Cool, huh?”

“Yeah,” she said weakly, looking down the line of what must have been animals drawn by Luffy. Her jaw tightened when she recognized the drawing of a shark just on the edge of the beach, and she said, turning away, “We should go now though. Let's find Gaimon so you can say goodbye.”

Luffy took her hand, and said as he pulled her down the line of drawings, “Did you see the rock?”

“Huh? Yeah, I did,” she said, “I can see it from here just fine though.”

“But you can't see the rest of it!” Leading her around the boulder, he waved his hand again, and she blinked at the sight of what he had actually written in stone:

Nami is the best!

cool friend

navigator

hits hard

scares Zolo (but not Luffy)

likes

She grinned at the picture of the crown and mandarin orange beside the word, and said, “Thanks, Luffy.”

Grinning wider, he nodded, “No problem!”

Releasing her hand, he ran down the beach, and shouted for Gaimon. Nami watched him run over the sand, and then took a moment to look at the shark etched into the sand before she felt a swell of hope when she saw the water rise to wash it away.

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Damn, this is closer to a drabble … but I wanted to put something up for you guys this week since I was running a bit late for an actual one-shot. (Work got super busy this week and last). I'm actually in the process of smoothing out a prequel in my head to ALPTN so maybe I'll have the first chapter of that out next week. If not that, then some other one-shot. ;P I've also figured out how that sequel is going to play out, but I'm still going to wait for Thriller Bark to end.

For anyone wanting to know some details about the prequel, it's either going to be pre-Sanji or just before they enter the Grand Line. Anyone want one from the other? Either way though, there'll be a race (for those wanting to see more action from me).

!@#$%^&*()_+