One Piece Fan Fiction ❯ Sitting on the Waves ❯ What Next? ( Chapter 4 )

[ P - Pre-Teen ]

ONE PIECE
SITTING ON THE WAVES
CHAPTER 4
BY
Sgamer82


      A man watched as the four pirates rented a carriage to take their crewmate back to their boat.

     Damn! he thought. He had hoped to avoid the detection of what the navigator was experiencing until everything was set. He had known that the girl had had the mark of Arlong tattooed on her. But he had not realized that the girl had altered the tattoo. The times he had seen her on the island she had been wearing a shirt which covered up her shoulder.

     “Hey! Tirsni!” he hailed over a young man.

     “Yeah, boss?”

     “Run ahead of that carriage and let her know what’s happened.”

     “Right!” ;

     The kid took off. Thanks to the navigator’s incident, nobody paid any attention. The plan had to be accelerated a bit before the pirates figured out too much. Their partner had best be ready. * * * * *

     Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and Robin rode with Nami in a horse-pulled cart Robin had hired to get them back to the Merry. When Robin had made her announcement, the boys had busted into the room despite Nami’s wishes to look after her. They checked her shoulder and, just as Robin had said, her tattoo had somehow transformed into the mark of Arlong. They immediately got Nami’s shirt back on her and led her to the cart to be taken home.

     She hadn’t said a word since they left the shop. She simply sat there, almost catatonic, ignoring everything going on around her, hugging herself tightly. She didn’t react to anything, even Luffy’s tying up his face in knots, until they reached the Chibi no Mi Nursery halfway to the boat.

     Usopp and the orphanages’ caretaker, Leda, saw the cart and, after seeing Nami’s expression, immediately ran to it to see what was wrong. When Nami set eyes on them, she immediately moved her hands up to her shoulders. The others took the hint and simply told Usopp and Leda that there was an accident while Nami was shopping. They could explain the rest to Usopp in private.

     Leda walked beside the cart where Nami was sitting and took her hand.

     “Now, dear, I’m sure it couldn’t have been so bad.”

     Nami stayed silent.

     “Well, things will get better, I promise.” Leda said sincerely. The words seem to perk Nami up a bit. Usopp climbed into the cart with the others, knowing this was more serious than they were letting on and waved to Leda and the children as the cart was pulled away.

* * * * *

     “Her tattoo did what?” Usopp asked in shock, when Zoro and Sanji had told him and Chopper the details. Robin had helped Nami to her room when they had gotten back to the Going Merry and she had been asleep for the past few hours. The rest of the crew was currently eating dinner in the kitchen.

     “We saw it.” Zoro answered, “It was Arlong’s mark, no doubt.”

     “That’s not all!” Chopper interjected. “When I gave her her physical, the tattoo wasn’t different, but when I checked her height measurements, she was smaller than the last time I did it.”

     “You know, come to think of it.” Sanji said, “she did seem to be approximately one-and-a-half inches smaller.”

     “My calculations had her shrinking by about four!” Chopper replied.

     “He wasn’t talking about her height.” Zoro explained, eyeing the cook with a disgusted expression. Sanji returned the look.

     “Maybe she shrunk in the wash!” Luffy suggested between bites of food.

     “How is that possible?!” Sanji, Zoro, and Usopp all asked him.

     “Well, it happens with clothes.” Luffy said, as if it were obvious.

     Robin listened to the conversation, not saying anything. She had a suspicion, but it was based on nothing more than rumor. She didn’t wish to say anything until she was more sure. The conversation was immediately halted when a thud was heard outside.

* * * * *

     Dang! she thought as the table set up on the deck fell over. She was gonna be caught for sure now.

     She had no idea what would happen to her, or what had happened to her, for that matter. But she was eager to find out.

     The last thing she remembered was waking up in a room on a ship she hadn’t been on before. It had been dark, but she’d managed to find her way to the door. She looked around the boat. Sea to the south, and what looked like a dock to the north, behind which what seemed like a forest with a path through the middle (she couldn’t tell for sure, in the darkness). She had planned to get off the boat and get her bearings before anyone could notice her, but then she went and knocked over a deck table.

     Before she could react to anything else, a door opened and Luffy, Zoro, Usopp, Sanji, Chopper, and Robin came out to find a young adolescent girl with orange hair sneaking off the Going Merry. Recognition hit them almost instantly.

     “Nami?” Luffy asked.