Chapter Text
She walked along pier twenty-two firmly clutching in her hands her worn-out bag, a companion of adventures and misadventures, in which she had the six thousand Berries that she would need to pay the man who the night before had offered to give her a lift to the Konomi archipelago. He had asked her if only her or even her friends would be on the boat, but she had specified that her journey would be a solitary one. She had started it in that way and so she had to finish it in the same way. Yet, she felt as if she were leaving behind something that she didn't want to give up, something that smelled like happiness.
For years she had wanted a normal life, the freedom to choose what to do with her life, friends to count on. Now she finally had the chance to have all these things, but the price she had to pay was giving up saving her village from Arlong's imprisonment.
Every two steps her head turned back in the direction of the boat on which she had left those three ramshackle people with whom she had spent her last days, in the hope of not being discovered but also of being able to see them one last time. And finally there was him, the one who was making her worry the most. That swordsman with the unusual green hair and gruff attitude, who somehow had managed to dig inside her and understand that she was hiding a mask. She knew that soon he would have to challenge the hawk-eyed man, Dracule Mihawk, also known as the strongest swordsman in the world. He had no chance of making it, yet she hadn't been able to persuade him to give up the lost duel. “It's her dream, Nami” Luffy had replied when she asked him to convince his first mate not to do something crazy that would cost him his life. Stupid rubber boy...dreams were for those who could afford them, not for those like them. She too had a dream, but she had buried it with her mother many years ago.
Once she reached the boat that would take her away from there, the man from the bar asked her if she wanted to get on but she didn't answer: she turned back once again with shining eyes, on the verge of tears. She didn't want to leave, she didn't want to leave them. She didn't want to leave him.
“What do you want me to do, huh?! Do you want me to tell you that you’re the best? You're the best, okay? You're the best I've ever met but you're not better than him! And if you fight him tomorrow you will die!”
“And why do you care?”
“Because you're my friend, idiot!”
“You said it yourself, you have no friends.”
She remembered that abrupt conversation they had had, which was followed only by a long silence and then her escape. Zoro had used her confession from earlier as a weapon against her and it had hurt her terribly. The coldness with which he had uttered those words had been disarming. They had started this conversation as a game disguised as an excuse to drink, but in the end it was nothing more than a way to get to know each other better. He was suspicious of her, he must have sensed that she was hiding something; for her part, she was intrigued and somehow fascinated by him, so different from everyone she had met up to that moment. The chemistry between them could be felt loud and clear. Who knows, maybe in another life they could have even met and had a relationship, no matter how absurd the idea seemed.
- So, are you coming in or not? - the man asked her again, impatient to leave.
- I changed my mind. I'm sorry- she replied.
She had just given up on finding safety to stay alongside three madmen she had just met. Three crazy people who had earned a special place in her heart.
As a tear rolled down her cheek, she picked up her bags and headed back to witness the duel she would have preferred not to see.
Unfortunately she arrived at the exact second in which Mihawk plunged the blade of the cross-shaped knife he wore around his neck into the flesh of Zoro's chest. She swallowed hard, her blood freezing in her veins. She knew well that the hawk-eyed man wouldn’t have limited himself to that, that he wouldn’t have spared the life of a young boy who had dared, in an unconscious and foolish way, to challenge him. Both were warriors and both knew only one way to end a duel: one standing and the other on the ground unable to get up. She would have been fine with that, as long as she had the certainty that Zoro was still breathing, even when defeated.
The green-haired swordsman was visibly exhausted and now aware of the mistake he had made, to the point of handing himself over to his opponent. He stood in front of Mihawk and made him understand that he would wait to receive the final blow. She cursed herself for not having insisted enough to make him give up, but in her heart she knew that she would never have succeeded. His dream was bigger than anything else.
Together with Usopp and Luffy, she watched in terror as Mihawk pulled out his infamous black blade, that sword so large and heavy that it could have cut the world in half. The time had come, soon it would all be over.
Instinctively, she squeezed Usopp's hand tightly for comfort. She found it cold and sweaty from the tension. In her head she imagined for a moment that that firm hand in hers was Zoro's, warm and roughened by calluses caused by the swords. She hadn’t had the opportunity to have any physical contact with him and she now regretted not having done so. She had the impression that the energy they exuded when they were together was so strong that if they touched each other, they would generate sparks. She wasn't ready to lose him, she couldn't lose that man who had been able to understand her like no one had ever done in eighteen years. She wanted to tell him one more time that she thought of him as a friend and she wanted him to tell her that he thought of her the same way. She too was willing to forgive him for that unhappy outing he had made the night before so as not to see him die.
With a single, quick slash, the black blade fell on Zoro and ripped his chest in half.
And in that moment her heart did the same.